A few days after a Mahata Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) scam worth over Rs 50 lakh had surfaced another one worth Rs 12 lakh has come to light during an inspection conducted by the District Magistrate Haridwar Deepak Rawat at ladput Khurd village in laksar. A probe has been ordered while the salary of the Block Development Officer of laksar has been withheld. The raid was launched following complaints lodged by some villagers in the DM office regarding construction of roads which have allegedly remained confined in papers.
“It was found during the inspection that despite the budget being released, the construction of the road was yet to start. The project remains only in papers. It is a scam which would be probed by the district development officer following which strict action would be taken against the guilty. I have ordered to stop the salary of block development officer Ishwar Chandra Bhandari till further order,” said DM.
Notability, barely a month ago, the scam worth Rs 54 lakh under MNREGA scheme had surfaced at Gaziwa village under Bahdarabad development block. While the released fund had been shown to be utilised in some river embankment works some villagers who had received money into their accounts for the works had denied having done any work for the project. Subsequently, a case had been registered against a junior engineer, a Gram Pradhan and a village development officer at the behest of the DM.