Spiti desert project dumped

The panel, headed by Financial Commissioner-cum-Secretary O P Yadav, which has done most of its crucial spot verifications and scrutiny of records, will submit its report early next month.Some IAS officers, including those already named in earlier findings, forest officials and engineers of irrigation and public health departments are likely to be in the line of fire.

Earlier, the Gian Singh Negi Committee had severely indicted various Government agencies for draining out funds and committing serious irregularities of 8220;criminal waste of public resources8221;.

The Rural Integration Department RID, which was the nodal agency for routing the funds, is understood to have already done an exercise and its comments on the Negi Committee report will guide the Yadav panel on recommending action against the officials involved. The Forest Department has already taken administrative action against a dozen officers and made recoveries worth Rs 8 lakh from them.

The Yadav panel was set up by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh last month when the issue of failure of the DDP cropped up at a meeting of the Trial Advisory Committee.

According to reports, barring some parts of Spiti, the project has failed to have any impact on afforestation or water harvesting measures despite the huge amounts of funding that it receives.