Deputy Chief Minister in-charge Urban Affairs Sniawbhalang Dhar has informed that the state government has filed an affidavit before the Meghalaya High Court with regards to the proposal for relocating the 342 families of Sweepers’ Colony from Them Iew Mawlong.
Dhar told reporters today that now the matter is left to the court to decide.

The minister said that the government will also sit in a few days and take a call on the matter.

According to him, this was after the Harijan Panchayat Committee (HPC) had rejected the government’s proposal to relocate the Sweepers’ Colony from Them Iew Mawlong to the existing land of the Shillong Municipal Board (SMB).

Dhar however said that the government will always welcome the HPC if they want to discuss the matter.

On April 24, the Meghalaya High Court had deferred the hearing on the issue to June 7.

The order was passed by the division bench based on the request made by the state government and the HPC during the hearing held here.
The government had come up with a blueprint after rejecting the April 25,2022-proposal of the HPC that 200 square meters of land be provided to each of the 342 families within the European ward besides bearing the cost of construction of their homes.

In its recent 6-page reply sent to the Deputy Secretary of the Government of Meghalaya and other concerned departments, the HPC had alleged that the government’s proposal was “incomplete, unsuitable, unprepared, unfair and undemocratic.”

The HPC had also stated in its reply that “There are serious lacunae, sweeping and undesirable conclusions in the approach and attitude of the High-Level Committee of the Meghalaya government.”

“We are absolutely devastated that since the formation of the new government, ministers, MLAs and certain groups have been making unnecessary remarks saying that the whole issue would be resolved within the month of April. What magical trick do they have up their sleeve to resolve the issue within days? The matter is sub-judice and they are only paying lip service to respect for the judiciary. We will not buckle under political duress,” it had also added.

The autonomous district councils (ADCs) have failed to submit pending utilization certificates (UCs) for the implementation of various development schemes sanctioned by the Centre during 2017 – 2022.

Out of the grants of Rs 385.71 crore received as central grants during 2017-22, the ADCs could submit UCs for only Rs 129.63 crore (34%) of the total fund allotted, said the State Finances Audit Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended March 31, 2022.

Non-submission of the UCs means that the authorities have not explained as to how funds were spent over the years or they were not spent, it said.

The CAG has suggested that the ADCs may be advised to submit the pending UCs.

Meanwhile, the report said that the annual accounts of the ADCs were in arrears for two to six years.

The outstanding annual accounts of the KHADC were from 2020-21 to 2021-22, JHADC from 2019-20 to 2021-22 and GHADC from 2016-17 to 2021-22.

As per the Fund Rules of JHADC and GHADC, the annual accounts were to be submitted to the PAG (Audit) by June 30 of each year but no prescribed date was mentioned in the Fund Rules of the KHADC.

The CAG said that persistent delay in the finalization of accounts is fraught with the risk of fraud and leakage of public money going undetected. It recommended that the state government may advise the ADCs to finalise the arrear accounts and submit them to the Principal Accountant General (Audit).