A civil society group of Nagaland has sought information from the state planning department on the number of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) candidates who were provided financial assistance under Chief Minister’s Corpus Fund (CMCF) in the last two years.
The People for Democratic Rights (PDR) also urged the department to reveal how much amount each candidate had received during the last two financial years and how many of them had cleared all examination stages of UPSC.
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In a release on Monday, the group said it welcomed the release of Rs 45 lakh on two occasions as financial assistance to UPSC candidates who cleared Prelims by the budget and monitoring cell of the finance department. It said the amounts were released under CMCF in favour of planning and coordination department.
It also stated that Rs 20 lakh was released on March 18, 2017 for UPSC candidates for 2016-17 while Rs 25 lakh was released for 2017-18 on December 12, 2017. However, the civil society group pointed out that no break-up regarding the list of beneficiaries of CMCF were mentioned.
Stating that such financial assistance encourages the UPSC candidates, the PDR urged the planning department to clarify whether such assistance could be provided to those candidates clearing Nagaland Public Service Commission Prelims in order to encourage both categories of candidates.
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Referring to the release of Rs 1.90 crore by the budget and monitoring cell of the finance department on December 6, 2017 as financial assistance to 71 beneficiaries and Rs 50 lakh on December 11, 2017 for 45 beneficiaries under CMCF 2017-18 against various projects, the PDR urged the planning department to provide the list of 45 beneficiaries and projects thereof for whom Rs 50 lakh was released.
The group noted that the people generally perceive such assistance as non-productive as most of beneficiaries pocket the amount and no works were undertaken or left halfway, leading to wastage of public money. This denies opportunities to the sincere beneficiaries who might have put in real hard work to make their projects a success, it stated.
The PDR said it is for the public to judge whether the beneficiaries deserved such financial assistance and whether the projects are being carried out. It also announced to release a list of the 71 beneficiaries in public domain, many of who had not undertaken the projects against which huge sums of public money were released.
The PDR further asked the planning department to furnish the list of 10 beneficiaries for whom Rs 1 crore was released by the finance department under CMCF on March 20, 2017.