With several thousands crore of rupees has been reportedly siphoned off under the Central Government sponsored scheme Rs Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in UP, the Central ministry of
Rural Development ordered a probe into large scale misuse of funds under Rs Administrative Head’ in 14 districts of the State. Interestingly, the beneficiary of over Rs 200 crore scams are not just government officers both in the Centre as well as in State but also thousands of journalists whom payments were shown made on record. Surprisingly, on one hand the officers swindled the money and on the other hand, over 30,000 adhoc employees who worked under MGNREGA 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 ministry for further action by December 10, has been ordered on complaint of Congress leader Sanjay Dixit, who is also member of Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology, a body of Central Ministry for Rural Development).
Sanjay 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 Rs Samarpan Society for Social Services’. In his complaint sent to Union Minister for Rural
Development, Jairam Ramesh in October last, Congress leader Sanjay Dixit alleged large scale swindling of funds in MGNREGA under the Rs 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 adhoc workers, the officials overlooked it and shown over Rs 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. Sanjay 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 irregularlities so that truth should come out and culprits should be punished and sent to jail.