Shillong,July 11: CEO & Founder of CR Projects, Christopher Rani (in picture) has threatened to sue a leading English daily for alleging corruption into the implementation of the diagnostic centre at Pasteur Institute, Lawmali.
Addressing a press conference, Rani said the report published in the daily was false and without facts.
“If they do not file a correct story based on facts and not fiction, I will sue them and I will see them in court,” he told reporters on Monday.
The state government had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Suraksha & Salvia Global LLP for setting up the state-of-the-art diagnostic centre on public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
Reiterating that the report had blatantly alleged there is corruption, Rani who is also a representative of the Suraksha & Salvia Global LLP, however, said, “I am sorry there is nothing like that as here is the insight to it. This project is on a PPP mode and the payment or whatever funds that is supposed to come from the Centre through DoNER which till today the state government has not received. So how can the state government disburse Rs 100 crore. Do they really know it is Rs 100 crore project as it can be Rs 1,000 crore project or Rs 5,000 crore project.”
He revealed that the state government till date spent only Rs 10 lakh for equipment .
“The vendor, who was awarded with the tender for supply has already brought the equipment and is in process of transporting”, he said.
According to Rani, all equipment takes at least 8-9 months to be built and they are being transported from the international border which have to be brought very delicately and takes at least two months to be brought by ship.
Rani said, “I really question from where they got the figure of Rs 100 crore. Slanderously they are defaming us and making us look bad that oh we have received Rs 100 crore for what and we have spent it for nothing…I really like to know why they did not come and approach us. We are a local party with no benami, we are tied up with experts from outside. It is not benami.”
He said that the project is also aimed at bringing back local talents that include radiologists home .
He added efforts are made to convince them to come back to the state.
To a question, Rani said that the pathology lab is functioning well. “But we are not advertising it in a large scale because we understand the fact that if someone wants a lot of diagnosis to be done only pathology will not do as when it comes to radiology, there are few criterias when it comes to licenses that need to be accredited to which are yet to be obtained by us and also our equipment are also in the process of transit.”
Stating that the state-of-the-art diagnostic centre will be made fully functional within 7 months, Rani said, “We will need time so that we can give you the best of everything. We will need about 6-7 months to put things together. Within six months all the equipment should be in place and pathology is already in place. We could start with that.”
