The Pioneer, Aug 18, 2007
Bikash Khemka | Bhawanipatna
Special Project Director, Panchayati Raj Department, Saswat Mishra, visited a few blocks of Kalahandi district in July to oversee the implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)) and directed the district Collector for further study in the matter.
Accordingly, Collector Pramod Chandra Pattnaik visited Sikerguda of Chancher Gram Panchayat under the Bhawanipatna block on August 2, 2007 and brought to the fore the misappropriations in the allotted Government funds. He took the statements of 23 labourers while reviewing the case recorded as number 193/2005-06 of the project "Improvement of Road from RD road to Sikerguda." The estimated cost for this project was Rs 4 lakh.
Investigations revealed that a few labourers, who had never worked for the project, had been paid as per the muster roll. The thumb impressions of the labourers were present in the muster roll but signatures were put in the statement.
Nevertheless, excess money was shown as paid, in the muster roll against work done, although the labourers received less pay against the total number of working days. The workers never held a job card and the work done was shown by their names. The dead were shown alive and as per the muster roll, they too had received their wages. The names of women who had been married long back and had been away from the village were also seen on the muster list.
The BDO filed a FIR on August 3 under the NREGA Act 2005 for deliberate fabrication of the muster roll of NREGS works and misappropriation of Government money by forgery in the name of Secretary of Chancher GP.
Chanchal Harijan, ex-VAW and PEO, Jagajiban Naik, VLL, Ajit Kumar Pradhan, ex-Sarpanch, Chancher GP, ex-JE Shyam Prasad Panda.
In Kalahandi, out of 2, 00,852 families, 4, 90,532 persons had registered themselves for work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
The administration had provided 1, 98,298 job cards. Out of the 2, 12,303 people who had applied from 1, 02,272 families, 2, 11,380 persons were provided jobs.
According to official reports, 9967 families were provided jobs for a period of 1,300 days in the year 2006-07.
The different blocks and the amounts spent are listed as follows: Bhawanipatna Rs 11,97,43,838, Dharmagarh Rs 6,98,46904, Jaipatna Rs 4,62,94,252, Junagarh Rs 5,26,30,545, Kalampur Rs 3,38,43,685, Karlamunda Rs 2,13,85,486, Kesinga Rs 4,73,41,636, Koksara Rs 4,05,46,893, Lanjigarh Rs 2,13,85,486, Madanpur-Rampur Rs 3,09,91,296, Narla Rs 17,15,554 and Thuamul-Rampur Rs 3,80,3567. A total amount of Rs 70,70, 38, 922 was spent in all the blocks of the district, according to Government records.
Official records show that during the year of 2007-08, an amount of Rs 30, 60, 5743 has been spent till June 2007.
The question that arises is that if in a single visit the concerned officials from the completed project of NREGS, 23 records were found, how many would still surface if all the village works are properly audited and how much of the funds would have actually been misappropriated in the district.
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