The AAP on Wednesday alleged that out of 4.55 lakh artisans registered under Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), bank accounts were opened for only 1.93 lakh artisans, the remaining 2.5 lakh ghost workers were paid in cash every month. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Wednesday claimed that Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena misappropriated crores of rupees making payments to “ghost artisans when he was the Chairman of the KVIC”, and demanded his “immediate” sacking and a probe against him by the central agencies.
Addressing a press conference, Singh backed his claims by referring to a 2016 Patna HC order on payment of wages to artisans and findings of a CVC enquiry into alleged disbursement of crores of rupees to “ghost artisans”.
He tore a defamation notice sent to him by the L-G recently, saying such notices cannot stop him from “telling the truth”. Singh also asked Saxena to respond to allegations using his personal social media handle, saying the official handle of the Raj Niwas "belongs to the Delhi L-G, not you." “VK Saxena is a very corrupt person. When he was KVIC’s Chairman he gobbled crores of rupees of 2.5 lakh workers, and turned the KVIC into a den of corruption,” Singh told reporters. “If there is a little honesty in the (Central) Government, it should remove such a corrupt L-G and start a CBI and ED probe. The L-G should be arrested and sent to jail,” he added.
He also asked Prime Minister Modi why Saxena was appointed as Delhi L-G when he was “neck deep in corruption.”Singh said the Patna HC, while hearing a petition moved by artisans against payment in cash to them by the KVIC, had ordered that the artisans be paid by cheque or directly in their bank accounts.
But the KVIC continued paying them in cash, he claimed. “Rajendra Pratap Gupta, the then member of the KVIC, tweeted on September 25, 2017, saying that he had got a complaint how KVIC was breaching the HC’s orders and making cash payments,” he added.
When issue came to light, the CVC intervened and started an inquiry, Singh said. The CVC inquiry report observed: “There were complaints that ghost artisans were present in the system as cash payments worth crores were disbursed to unidentified persons without maintaining proper records.”