Imphal, May 28: With discrepancies in the utilisation of funds sanctioned to the Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Department under various schemes and projects coming to the fore, the State Government has entrusted the Vigilance to conduct a probe into the matter.

The Vigilance Dept has been roped in to conduct the probe as over Rs 1 crores has been found missing from the bank account of the Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Department, disclosed a reliable source.

The source further disclosed that the Government had sanctioned Rs 1.35 crores to the Department for taking up various development schemes and projects in March this year.

However, only Rs 34,845 was found deposited in the bank account of the Department with no explanation on how the remaining amount had been utilised.

The Director of the Department brought the matter to the notice of the Commissioner (Veterinary) who in turn forwarded the same to the Chief Secretary.

Accordingly, the Chief Secretary issued an order yesterday entrusting the Vigilance to conduct the probe and find out the manner in which the missing fund had been utilised.

Consequently, all the related files of the Department have been seized by the Vigilance in connection with the case.

The complaint letter written by the Director to the Commissioner (Veterinary) charged one Joint Director (Planning), whose normal routine duty is to look into the accounts of the Department, with deliberately refusing the request to release programme wise payment of the completed works as well as for other works to be taken up.

The complaint letter further charged the Joint Director with withdrawing money from the office account without the knowledge of the cashier on many occasions.

With Vigilance having started the probe and all the office filed seized, the training programmes to be conducted for the SEGP beneficiaries in Dairy, Poultry sectors, etc have also been put on halt, the source added.

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