While the Government has been allocating huge funds for plantation activities, yet greenery creation has remained very dismal in Keonjhar district and such allocations have made corrupt officials richer only.
Such an example has come to the fore in Ghasipura block where about 500 acres of horticultural plantation done on records has disappeared during field verification.
It is alleged that about Rs 1 crore allocated for plantation under the National Horticultural Mission Programme has not yet reached the real beneficiaries.
According to sources, the funds had been allocated for plantation of hybrid cashew and mango plants in 500 hectares of land in Ghasipura block during the financial year 2011-12 and 2012-13. Accordingly, interested beneficiaries having agricultural land were selected from different gram panchayats and required numbers of plants were distributed to them. Muster rolls were also prepared under the NIGS scheme and payment for plantation and other labour components were released. But it was found that payment was made in fame names in some cases instead of the real beneficiaries.
Even many selected beneficiaries have claimed that they had never been given any plant for the plantation. They had contacted the concerned Horticulturist several times, but in vain. Interestingly, there is not a single plant found on the land where the plantation is said to have been done as per records. Many persons who do not have a piece of land were selected as beneficiaries for the plantation programme.
A team that visited the Hatisila village under Deogaon gram panchayat for sample field verification could not find any trace of plantation as shown on records. The beneficiaries claimed their ignorance regarding such programme undertaken in their village.
Meanwhile, the district administration has started an inquiry in the misappropriation of funds on a complaint filed by block chairman Debashish Patra.
It too alleged that such irregularities have occurred in other blocks of the district. Only a high level inquiry can unearth details about the plantation committed in the last five years, opine intellectuals.