CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and his top officers control huge amounts of cash which is neither accounted for nor subjected to audit, This money is officially meant spent to Control militancy but in practices expended to buy over the media. Recently the state’s Assembly granted Rs 2 crore additional money for the year ending March 31,1993, to strengthen the secret kitty which has about Rs 10 crore ever hear. Dark stones are in circulation here about how the secret money is spent by the chief minister and his close confidants.
Names of editors and senior journalists are being mentioned in media circles as the recipients of the largesse. Sometime ago journalists associated with a newspaper union were given a grant of Rs 50,000 out of the chief minister’s secret fund. The newspaper has since been singing the chief minister’s praises,
It is now an open secret in Chandigarh that several “important” journalists are doled out handsome grants in lieu of accepting plants and using them as positive, patriotic” stories, these journalists belong both to newspapers and news agencies,
It is also a noteworthy fact that the state government officers and the chief minister themselves decide which journalist has to stay in Punjab and “serve the national interest” and which journalists are to be cashed out, In some cases, even the Punjab police chief intervened to stop the transfer of news agency journalists.
According to a report the Punjab governor Surinder Nath withdrew Rs 25 lakh from the government’s secret fund on the eve of the last election. No one knows where the money has been spent. However, Nath’s predecessors Nirmal Mukherjee, O.P.Malhotra and Virender Verma never operated the secret fund on their own.
Thanks to the operation of the secret fund, the media scene presents a unique spectacle; no many stories projecting violations of human rights appear in the media here or is circulated by the news agencies.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 30, 1993
