Rising People’s Party (RPP) said it was amused at government sources blaming the party for their own lack of responsibility regarding shortage of staff in Health & Family Welfare (H&FW) department.
Accusing the department of being incompetent, RPP asked the H&FW department to concentrate on regaining its lost credibility. RPP said that citing acute shortage of funds seemed to be an admission of misappropriation of funds by the department itself.
RPP said that if there was no misappropriation, then the department should furnish itemised expenditure lists with regard to the state government’s own admission that a whopping Rs. 245.44 crore had already been spent so far for Covid-related activities in 2020-21 along with 25% of LAPD funds for emergency.
To this, RPP demanded that “the chief minister and the health minister must furnish answers as to where and how this huge amount of funds has been utilised.”
It further pointed out that the Government of India on March 24, 2020 ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days. Prior to that, it said the State government had on April 22 issued an office memorandum (OM) banning “all fresh appointments, including vacancies arising against sanctioned posts in all government departments until further orders.”
The OM also stated that “This will not apply to medical staff (Doctors, Nurses, Technicians, and Para-medics) of Health & Family Welfare Department who have been given a special dispensation vide this Department’s notification of even number dated 1st April, 2020”.
Pointing out that already one-and-a-half years had gone by since the OM was issued, RPP said if there was shortage of staff, what had stopped the H&FW department from conducting its own recruitment process. It said, in the light of the facts, the allegation of the “source” was not only unfounded but cheap.
The party said the “source” should ask who was responsible for delaying the formation of Nagaland Staff Selection Board (NSSB), and thereby causing shortage of staff in all the departments.
Though the “source” would like to blame RPP, for the student community, the chief minister was clearly responsible for the delay in operationalising NSSB till date even after the NSSB Act was passed in July 2020.