With thousands of crores reportedly siphoned off under the Central Government-sponsored Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in UP, the Central Ministry of Rural Development ordered a probe into the large-scale misuse of funds under ‘Administrative Head’ in 14 districts of the State.
Interestingly, the beneficiaries of over `200-crore scam are not just Government officers both at the Centre as well as in the State but also thousands of journalists whom payments were shown made on record. Surprisingly, on the one hand the officers swindled the money and on the other, over 30,000 ad hoc employees who worked under MNREGA did not even get their wages when they had first right over the money.
The enquiry which is to be completed immediately and a detailed finding should be dispatched to the Ministry for further action by December 10, has been ordered on complaint of Congress leader Sanjay Dixit, who is also a member of Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology, a body of the Central Ministry for Rural Development.
Dixit who already lodged a case in this regard here at Hazratganj police station sought an enquiry into 46 districts but probe has been ordered just in 14 out of it which included Allahabad, Varanasi, Sonebhadra, Azamgarh, Basti, Gonda, Balrampur, Saharanpur, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Balia, Siddharthnagar, Kanpur Nagar and Ghazipur. The probe will be conducted by Dalhi-based ‘Samarpan Society for Social Services’.
In his complaint sent to Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh in October last, the Congress leader had alleged large-scale swindling of funds in MGNREGA under the ‘Administrative Head’ in over 46 districts of UP in the last two financial years. He mentioned that when the Government order dated May 26, 2010 clearly pointed that first priority under the above head should be given for payments to ad hoc workers, the officials overlooked it and shown over `200 crore exhausted in the name of transportation, purchase of gadgets, plantation, construction of ponds, cement pipe etc.
He mentioned that the funds were not just shown spent on above items but official record available with him also shown it distributed to journalists.
Dixit further mentioned in his letter that the misappropriation of funds has been made in 46 districts which also included Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jhansi, Allahabad, Varanasi etc. He claimed what is more serious is that money has been misutilised when it could be used to make payments to poor workers as their wages.
He said that for the above bungling, Commissioner of MGNREGA, Principal Secretary (Rural Development) in UP, district level co-ordinators/ District Magistrates, ADM/CDO and Block level officers, all are responsible. He demanded that a through probe should be made into the entire irregularities so that truth should come out and culprits should be punished and sent to jail.