Funds misuse slur on Harka

Vivek Chhetri, Darjeeling, March 3: The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration today alleged that Kalimpong MLA Harka Bahadur Chhetri had used public money to build protection walls and fence the boundary of his personal property in Kalimpong when he was on the board of administrators of the DGHC and the GTA.

Chhetri, who had recently founded the Jan Andolan Party, said he had walled up and fenced his homestead land with his own money.

Binay Tamang, executive GTA Sabha member and the assistant secretary of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, raised the allegations against the Kalimpong MLA at a press conference at Lal Khoti, the headquarters of the hill body. "A work order bearing memo no. KID 62/(1)/(1)/(9)/ W-1 dated 29 February, 2012, was issued by the DGHC for landslide protection work in the Upper Hill Top area at a cost of Rs 14, 24, 508. Again an additional fund of Rs 4,75,337 was allotted (memo no KID-206 (A)/(1)/(1)/(9)/W-1 dated May 5, 2012) by the GTA for the same work," said Tamang.

"As per our information, there was no landslide in the Upper Hill Top area at that time and Rs 19 lakh was used for building a protection wall and fencing for Harka Bahadur Chhetri's personal land in the Hill Top area of Kalimpong," alleged Tamang.

He said when the funds had been sanctioned by the DGHC and the GTA, they were being run by the board of administrators - headed by an "administrator" and comprised of three hill MLAs as the ex-officio members.

Tamang said: "If our allegations are wrong, then Harka should show us which work was done using these funds... in the coming days, we will come up with more instances of misuse of power by Chhetri."

Chhetri denied the allegations.

"When the board of administrators was in place, everything was unofficially decided by Bimal Gurung, Roshan Giri and Binay Tamang and we had to only give our signatures for the list of projects. They would fix contractors for all works. This is like pot calling the kettle black."

He added: "I spent my personal money to fence my land and do other works... if one is to talk about public funds being misused, one must also talk about Rs 50 lakh being given from the MP fund to the Kanchenjungha Public Academy."

Kanchenjungha Public Academy is a CBSE-affiliated high school at Tukvar, 10km from here, and run by a trust. Gurung is believed to be the brain behind it. Told about Chhetri's counter-charge, Tamang said: "The school is run by a trust. We can assure you that not a single rupee from the MP fund has been used in the school. As the ex-officio member, Harka had signed on every document. Now, he says everything was decided unofficially by the Morcha leaders."