AGARTALA, Dec 19 (TIWN): Its an undeniable fact that Corruption in Tripura reached its peak during the tenure of former Chief Secretary S.K.Panda who is incumbent Textile Secretary in Union Govt. Panda not only patronized well known scamsters like BDO Bimal Chakraborty who translated Panda's book 'One plus One equals to Eleven' into Bengali, apart from that mysteriously a tainted publisher Jnan Bichitra published Panda's book FREE of COST as former Secretary was instrumental in ordering subordinates to buy his books in Tripura's libraries, Schools by using Central Govt's RMSA fund. Question still remains how much royalty Jnan Bichitra's Debanada Dam paid to former CS Panda and CM ? How much BDO Bimal's share ? Former Chief Secretary Dr. S.K.Panda and Chief Minister Manik Sarkar still shying away from declaring the royalties received from Jnan Bichitra publisher Debananda Dam. Addl Director of School Education Department, Government of Tripura issued an order vide letter No.F.19(38)-SE/RMSA/2010(Loose) dt 2 June 2014 instructing all 8 District Education Officers to procure two books- 'Atit Diner Smriti' written by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and 'Eker sathe ek mile egara' written by the the Chief Secretary S K Panda out of Annual Fund provided to 839 schools by RMSA 2013-14.

Soon it sparked a storm of controversy and under tremendous pressure from all corners state govt took an initiative to suppress the incident in order to give shelter to top level officials in Schools.

Tripura's endless corruptions : CM,CS book publishing by tainted publisher and then issuing Govt order for forceful sale across State

It is learnt that Director P K Chakraborty suspended Deputy Director Ambalika Datta for her involvement on this issue .

Education Department and as such issued a suspensation letter to the Deputy Director to Ambalika Datta putting the total blame on her over the whole issue.

It is also alleged by the Department that Amabalika Datta has gone out of station without permission from this department.

And, from here the story begins. According a top level official in the School Education Department Ambalika Datta's only son who is an engineering student in Kota, has recently become ill and has been hospitalized . As a result of it Ambalika Datta was forced to go outside the state to take care of her aiming son. And before that she submitted a Leave Petition of 45 days but the Director P K Chakraborty allowed 30 days of leave along with station leave permission (Received copy of the grant letter is with Ambalika Datta). So the question of going outside does not valid here. But the more interesting fact is that Ambalika Datta being a lower level official has no right to issue an order to her higher level officials nor she has any involvement on that particular malpractice. The plot was actually made by the owner of the private publishing agency Jyan Bichitra,  Debananda Dam and that too because of his very intimate relationship with Chief Minister Manik Sarkar as well as the then Chief Secretary S K Panda. 

      According to a top level official in the School Education Department Debananda Dam wrote a letter addressing the Principal Secretary K Rajeswar Rao requesting him to take steps for selling huge quantity of these two particular books through this department.

Accordingly the letter was received by Jogomaya Chakma, Branch Officer of General Section of School Education Department. After this Jogomaya Chakma sent the letter to Rajeswar Rao's table.

Without wasting time Principal Secretary sent the matter to Director P K Chakraborty to look after it. At this Director P K Chakraborty asked Dilip Kumar Debbarma , who is the head of Planning & Budget Section as well as Officer on Special Duty of RMSA, whether fund is available to procure such huge quantity of books. D K Debbarma told the Director that there is no such fund. At this Director called Ambalika Datta, who is looking after RMSA since it was introduced in Tripura, and verbally asked whether such funds can be arranged from RMSA.

TIWN sources add that Ambalika Datta verbally told the Director that funds are there and 'If  Department wants to procure these two books, necessary funds can be arranged.'

There was no written communication between the Director and Ambalika Datta. Knowing this Director asked DO K Debbarma to issue such order to all DEOs. But the letter somehow got leaked and media came to know about the entire episode. And under serious pressure and humiliation Director P K Chakraborty suspended Deputy Director Ambalika Datta who is known for her honesty as well as stubborn attitude. Actually Ambalika Datta was under the scanner of so many officials close to Melarmath.

TIWN sources add that at present there are 17 officers of Deputy Director Rank in School Education Department and out of this only Ambalika Datta is from General Category. And ever since the introduction of RMSA in Tripura she has been doing significant job. Even on the first Ambalika Datta skillfully used her diplomacy to bring Rs 100 crore from Centre under RMSA. Now when the malpractice came to light highlighting the motive of the state govt in encouraging a private agency obtaining huge profit by selling books(which have no significance with the well being of students) such an honest officer has been made scapegoat in order to suppress.

Even though Govt sacrificed Ambalika Datta into jail on other offences but the fact remains is - no one knows How much royalty money CM Manik and his former Chief Secretary made and how much money Govt wasted from central govt's RMSA fund on buying these two useless garbages ?