Shimla
Chief Electoral Officer, Maneesh Garg today directed all the State Nodal Officers to intensively monitor the election expenditure and gear up the efforts to control the illegal movement of liquor, cash and drugs along-with completely capping the illegal mining all over the State.
He was holding a video conference with different State and Central law enforcement agencies including the officers of State Police, State Taxes & Excise, Postal department, ITBP, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Railway Protection Force (RPF), Income Tax department etc.
“As few days are left for the polls, the agencies concerned should intensify their checks to reduce illegal activities and must ensure inducement free and fair elections in the State, which has been a motto of the Election Commission of India as well”, he remarked. The CEO emphasized upon the close coordination of the departments involved in ensuring law and order besides ensuring seizures of all types.
Sh. Garg directed the Police department to impound even the bank and postal cash carrying vehicles without authorized QR codes generated from the ESMS system. He said that the Flying Squad Teams (FSTs) should not miss a single vehicle without checking and even the buses along with both the other state transport and private buses should also be thoroughly checked, without causing any inconvenience to the passengers. The FSTs should have tie-ups within routes with other FST teams as well.
The CEO also directed the Postal department and banks to keep check on the multiple transactions of small values for or towards a single account besides keeping check on big transactions.
While reviewing the seizures made, Commissioner State Taxes and Excise, Yunus said that 5.24 lakh bulk liters of illegal liquor was seized since the imposition of the model code of conduct. Total seizures by the State Taxes and Excise Department were worth Rs. 8.81 crore.
IG Police, J.P. Singh gave detailed information on the Static Surveillance Teams (SSTs) and FSTs deployed to check any type of illegal activities. He said that 212 SSTs have been constituted of nearly 1600 police personnel besides 213 FSTs having deployment of nearly 560 men. He informed that the police had seized cash, liquor, ornaments etc worth Rs. 4.96 crore. Total quantity of liquor seized was 1.46 lakh litres. Besides, the NCB seized drugs of around 3 lakh.
Overall seizures in the state worth Rs. 13.79 crore have been reported since code of conduct was imposed, besides mining challans of nearly Rs 36 lakh.
Additional Chief Electoral Officer, Neelam Dulta was also present on the occasion amongst others.
