Imphal, August 12: The venture experiment of entrusting private companies /individuals to operate some of the Community Information Centres (CICs) which was set up to facilitate communication facilities for the people living in villages and other remote area has been proved more successful than envisaged, according to official source.

The source informed that the new experiment was taken up in Manipur after seeing the success of Nagaland Govt which enacted the Communitisation Act to rope in private companies for running these CICs. Under the Communitisation Act, the Nagaland Govt has also successfully involved Khullakpas, village leaders, church leaders, etc in recovering water and electricity taxes, running the schools by setting up various Village Education Committees.

Each of these committees opened their own accounts in the bank through which the Government deposited the salary of the teachers for three months in advance and empowered the committees to keep a close watch on the performance of the teachers and their attendance. Based on these assessment the Committees released the monthly emoluments of the teachers.

The amount deducted from the truant teachers are deposited in the fund of the committees.

Although it is against the Government policies to issue three months' pay for teachers in advance, the Nagaland Government enacted the Act to enable functioning of the committees efficiently, the source pointed out, adding that after seeing the success of the Nagaland Government in this regard, Commissioner Planning of Manipur Government A Luikham thought of implementing the new arrangement in the State as well.

Among the 33 CICs set up in every district headquarters as well as in blocks of the State, the CICs of the Keirao Bitra Block, Sawom-bung Block and another three CICs of Henglep blocks were selected for the experiment wherein �Co-mmunitisation' Committees were set up with SDOs concerned as chairman and Village chiefs, pradhans, schools teachers, representatives of the parents and their students as members.

The experiment proved successful and its fruit is being enjoyed by the people, the source claimed.

However, the success of this experiment seemed to have been clouded following the failure of releasing salary of the employees working in these centres on contact basis as their service have not been extended after the expiry of the contract in September last year.

The extension of the service tenure of the contract employees have been hampered due to frequent transfer and posting of Commissioner of Science and technology.

Moreover, an order of the Government which was issued sometime back stating that the extension should not exceed more than 6 months after the matter has been brought up for discussion and subsequent approval by an Officers' Committee.

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