"I sent the money for your and other officers’ enjoyment. Did you get it?” This was a simple and straight question from Timi Pushika, a woman belonging to the Primarily Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) named Dangaria Kandha from Balapai village under Chancharaguda gram panchayat in Bissam Cuttack block.
According to Timi, one Sahadeb came to her village and asked her to pay Rs 6,500 for the “Bhoji Bhat”(feast) of the officials. Sahadeb through Ramesh Nalla, a Community Resource Person, took away the money from Timi. Nalla works in an NGO called AKSSUS, supported by the Government project named Odisha Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups Empowerment and Livelihoods Improvement Programme (OPELIP) under Dangaria Kandha Development Agency (DKDA).
“OPELIP staff gave me a digital weighing machine, a bicycle and two chairs for doing a seasonal business with a total budget of Rs 27,000. Then took back Rs 6,500 in the plea of expenses towards big babus with least working capital left to run my business. And this is the exact reason I have travelled a long distance from Niyamagiri hills to the Collector’s Office to ask whether he had received the money she gave to Nalla via Sahadeb,” asserted Timi before the Additional District Magistrate(ADM) Dharmananda Behera.
Then she narrated her woes about how she had been cheated of Rs 5,000 with an assurance of supplying her with a water pump and how she was running from pillar to post to get her honorarium as a cook for last 14 months. The ADM and a few other working journalists were shocked with Timi’s assertion on the rampant corruption in the OPELIP project at DKDA Chatikana.
The OPELIP, funded with a soft loan from International Fund for Agriculture Development(IFAD), Rome through Ministry of Economic Affairs, Government of India as the borrower, became effective on March 18, 2016. The project's overall goal is to achieve enhanced living conditions and reduce poverty of the target group households.
The project's objective is to ensure improved livelihoods and food and nutrition security primarily for 32,090 PVTG households, 14,000 other tribal households and 16,356 other poor and Schedules Caste (SC) households (62446). This in turn will be achieved via building the capacity of the target households, securing them their entitlements over land and forest, improving their
agricultural practices for enhanced production, promoting income-generating micro-enterprises for livelihoods and ensuring access to education, health and other services and improving community infrastructure.
“Timi’s case is the tip of an iceberg. For the last eight years OPELIP-DKDA in Chatikana through its Annual Work Plans and Budget(AWPB) of Rs 66 crore has plundered a major chunk of the money like the way Timi has described. A rough estimate depicts that around 25% has been utilised as PC/bribe by deceiving the Dangaria Kandha. At the entrance of the village big hoardings and wall paintings are exhibited depicting OPELIP schemes and success stories, which later are established as being concocted,” said Suchana Adhikar Mancha convenor Rabindra Patakhandal.
As Timi was illiterate like almost all the villagers in her village, she requested the ADM to note her grievances to which the ADM budged. Though ensuring access to education to the PVTG is one of the primary development objectives of the project, sheer illiteracy in Balapai and its main village Kinjamjodi makes a mockery of the scheme.
The ADM assured Timi to institute an inquiry through the BDO, Bissam Cuttack.
Interestingly enough, before the inquiry by the authorities the next day, the staff of DKDA-OPELIP-AKSSUS arrived in Timi’s village and returned Rs 11, 500, the money they extorted from Timi as bribe. Alongwith the BDO, the ADM himself with the project staff went to Balapai and assured Timi to give back Rs 21,000 as her honorarium towards cooking food for the children in her hamlet.
“Finally Timi has won. It is because of her courage, simplicity and truthfulness. She has become an icon not only before the PVTG but also the entire poor community. Though the ADM has diplomatically said that no Government employee is involved in this Timi Pushika episode, then who is responsible in returning Rs 21,000 as cash to Timi though there is a guideline to transfer the same to her bank account ? This DKDA-OPELIP-AKSSUS NGO racket as plunderers of taxpayers’ money and roadblocks to the development of an ultra poor tribe like Dangaria Kandha need to be taken to task,” said Rasmiranjan Dora, a farmer leader.
