Believe it or not, the country’s legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar is listed among the beneficiaries of the UPA’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MNREGA) in Goa.
Not just him but his wife and children too are marked as beneficiaries recorded in Government data in Chimbel village in Goa on the outskirts of Panaji. A non-governmental organisation, the Goa Parivartan Manch (GPM), on Saturday, claimed to have exposed a scam in the MNREGA, where fictitious labourers have been listed and have been given job cards.
“We demand a probe into the MNREGA works in the Chimbel slums. It needs to be found out how these obviously fake names were registered as beneficiaries and who is making money on their behalf,” adviser for the forum Yathish Naik said at a Press conference in Panaji. Chimbel is a slum located on the outskirts of Panaji and Sachin Tendulkar finds himself as an applicant against serial No 374 of Tiswadi sub district block. Tendulkar’s registration number is GO-01-001-028-001/10063-C. Sachin’s wife Anjali, daughter Sara and son Arjun are listed in the documents, which had been unearthed by the NGO.
It’s not the case of Tendulkar alone. Other cricketing greats both from India and abroad find themselves listed in a case where collusion of Government officials is suspected. Former Indian captains Kapil Dev, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid keep Sachin company in the list of casual workers. As per the data, former Australian captain Ricky Ponting too ekes out a living by registering himself with the MNERGA scheme, a flagship programme of the Central Government which is aimed at providing guaranteed employment for at least 100 days a year. Film stars Amitabh Bachchan and Paresh Rawal are also beneficiaries of the MNREGA scheme according to the list of beneficiaries.