Siphoning off Government money meant for the poorest of the poor under MGNREGA scheme in Palamu has been detected.
Sources said the fiscal fraud in this MGNREGA scheme of ‘murgee shed’ in Paton block’s Mahulya village under Pahley Kalan panchayat runs into just well over 4 lakhs of Government money, but this could be just a tip of the ice berg. If more probe is done in schemes of Government here, more such frauds are bound to come up.
Credit for this detection of fraud goes to urban development minister C P Singh who is the chairman of Palamu district 20 point programme implementation committee and Durga Johri a member of this committee and a senior BJP leader here who took the lid off this fraudulence.
According to Johri “ There was a meeting of this committee held in Daltonganj under the chairmanship of C P Singh this Saturday October 6. I as a member of this committee raised the issue of bungling in the murgee shed scheme of MGNREGA at village Mahulya under Pahley Kalan panchayat of Paton block. I told the committee then that no murgee shed was built there but government money has been withdrawn and shown as spent.”
Johri further said “ The committee first wanted to be reassured that it was no fake allegation but a true one. I was even cautioned that I would lose my membership of this committee if probe into this allegation proved wrong. I stood my ground. I said I want probe into this. Our minister C P Singh believed me and ordered for a probe team to be set up for this allegation to be inquired into.”
Accordingly a 3 man inquiry team was set up which included Haider Ali the team leader and a senior government official, vice chairman of this committee Bipin Bihari Singh and this Durga Johri. The inquiry team visited Mahulya village on Sunday October 7 and to its horror there it found no trace of any murgee shed there under MGNREGA!
Haider Ali said “ Our inquiry team members did not find any murgee shed of MGNREGA there. There was no trace of it anywhere at Mahulya.”
Johri said “ The inquiry team visited houses of Sonul Singh, Manohar Bhuiyan, Shanti Devi, Bijlee Bhuiyan, Dinesh Bhuiyan, Chhotan Bhuiyan and Sudama huiyan of Mahulya village where our team found no existence of any murgee shed of MGNREG there as these people were the selected beneficiaries of this murgee shed yojna.”
This murgeee shed yojna was of 2016 -17 but it is nonexistent in 2018 lamented Johri who sounded most quiet that his raising of this issue in the 20 point programme implementation committee meeting was no futile exercise as inquiry team has found beyond all doubt that a systematic and deliberate fraud has been committed in this murgee shed scheme here.
Johri further said “ Chhotan Bhuiyan told the inquiry team that some sand and brick were dumped near his house for this murgee shed but after 15 days these materials were again lifted from his house by the same fellow who had got it dumped it and Chhotan Bhuiyan has no clue as to where sand and brick has so gone.
Johri said “ This detection is minor major in the sense that if such a fraud can be done in a scheme like this which is worth 60,000 to 61,000 rupees each murgee shed only then what could be the quantum of fraud in multi lakh worth government schemes here.
DC Palamu Shantanu Kumar Agrahari said all wrong doers of this yojna would be most severely dealt with. DC further said such irregularity in yojnas for poor will never be brooked at all. Sources said 50,000 rupees each on these non existing murgee sheds has been shown as spent !
BDO Paton Somnath Banerjee said mukhiya and panchayat sewak are the disbursing official of fund transfer order and it is their digital signatures with which fund transfer order is executed in the accounts of the labourers and the material suppliers. He said he was never informed of this either by the selected beneficiaries even that they were being duped and cheated in this way.
For MGNREG schemes there is a supervisory staff like MGNREG rozgar sewaks and MGNREG JEs who fill the MB ( measurement books) of schemes but here it appears everyone right from mukhiya down to MGNREG JEs and rozgar sewaks just looked the other way.