Mooshahary vows to fight corruption in NE

Shillong, Jul 1 (UNI) Vowing to fight corruption, newly-appointed Meghalaya Governor Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary today mooted the idea of having an institutional arrangement to root out corruption.

The North Eastern states, Mr Mooshahary said were ''trapped into a whirlpool of corruption'' and an institutional arrangement was required to drag out the region from the menace.

'' Right to Information Act (RTI) is one way of the institutional arrangement to fight corruption and people should take advantage of it, '' Mr Mooshahary told reporters here.

His statement came after Assam earned the dubious distinction of being the ''most corrupt state'' in the country as per the India Corruption Study 2007 report.

In other North-eastern states lik Nagaland, the corruption level was found to be ''alarming''. In Meghalaya and Sikkim corruption was found to be ''very high'' and in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur corruption was ''high,'' as per the report.

Mr Mooshahary, who held several key posts, including that of Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of Assam, said the Northeast was ''trapped in this whirlpool of corruption'' and was one of the biggest problems the region was facing.

For the overall peace and development of the region, he added: '' The matrix of governance management needs to be made more transparent and accountable. '' '' Meghalaya, a small state with a big potential, has huge potential in terms of development provided the resources, especially funds meant for the development, are properly utilised without siphoning them off, '' he said.

Asked about the inter-state dispute, the Governor termed the border problem between Assam and Meghalaya as unfortunate, but said disputes could be sorted out peacefully.

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