Announcing zero tolerance on corruption, the UP government has decided to go for CAG probe into utilization of funds related to legislator’s local Area Development (lAD) schemes also known as ‘Vidhayak Nidhi’ in the state. “The government has given powers to Comptroller and Auditor General to investigate utilization of funds provided through lAD fund. Besides, from now on, a school cannot receive more than Rs 25,000 as financial assistance from legislators,” announced UP Minister of state for Rural Development Mahendra Singh in lucknow on Tuesday.
Singh, however, made it clear that the CAG audit would be done only on legislators of this regime and will not include previous governments.
Addressing media persons, Singh said that the government has showed zero tolerance towards corruption because transparency has been the motto of the BJP regime.
Claiming that Pradhanmantri Gram Awas Yojgna was the main highlight of the six-month regime of the Yogi government, he said: ‘’There is a target to construct 9.71 lakh units by March 2018 of which 8.69 lakh have been approved and 7.52 lakh beneficiaries have received its first installment and 1.84 lakh got its second installment.’’
“To encourage women, 85 per cent of the ‘awaas’ (homes) were on the name of the lady as Narendra Modi government has decided to provide free power and lPG gas with the house besides providing additional funds for toilet and labour under MGNREGA,” the minister said.
Talking about MGNREGA, Singh made it clear that corruption in the scheme would not be tolerated and announced that all projects for which work would be done will now be geo-tagged. “Through MGNREGA, the government has started constructing 11,075 Anganwadi centres of which 1,008 have been completed,” he said.
Singh said that during the last six months of exietnce, the BJP government has made good achievement in rural livelihoods mission as 17,780 self help groups (SHGs) have been formed while of these 13,661 groups have been provided Rs 15,000 each as revolving fund.
The minister said that during the current fiscal, 84 new roads have been completed while a record 9,816.02 kms of roads were repaired and made pothole-free under the Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojna. Singh also claimed that drinking water was the priority of the government and during the six months, it had installed 1160 new hand pumps and re-bored 4,605 old ones in the Bundelkhand region. Besides, 211 pipeline drinking water projects were also under construction.