42 lakhs Corruption in MGNREGA,, just tip of the iceberg: BDO accepts Rs.22 lakhs in Cash
Badal Tah,Odishabarta
Rayagada, June 29: Rayagada Ombudsman, an autonomous institution under the aegis of Panchayatiraj Department in Govt of Odisha, has unearthed a huge corruption in MGNREGA work in just one village named Sana Pankala under Bijapur gram panchayat in the most interior Chandrapur block. The said homogeneous village inhabited by 34 households bordering Gajapati district is the last and farthest village of the district.
According to the village youths, during year 2013, two tribal kids died eating wild roots. The then Collector Jagannath Mohanty walked to their village from a roadside village named Surlu by traversing around three kilometres of undulated steep hills and forests. He sanctioned ₹.61 lakhs for road construction from Surlu to Sanapankala as there was no road. With this amount, the road could not be completed.
The villagers of Badapankala and Sanapankala represented before several authorities time and again to complete the road. Fortunately during 2019-21, the Surlu to Sanapankala road construction started under MGNREGA. But after a small portion of ghat cutting and flimsy work here & there, the work got stopped and the road maintained a status qou. The villagers were left to fend for them & with benefit of doubt. Anguished over the state of affairs, tribal villagers namely Dandasi Majhi, Sanjay Kreputika, Thomas Kreputika & Peter Majhi complained before Ombudsman (MGNREGA) & Vigilance, Rayagada about the irregularities in the road work. When the Ombudsman made a spot visit to inquire into the matter, he witnessed scores of other issues in the entire episode.
According to the findings of Ombudsman, around Rs.42 lakhs have been siphoned off out of total budget amounting ₹.56 lakhs. In the name of Surlu-Sanapankala road construction under MGNREGA, six works have been shown.Six numbers of works have been shown in the mgnrega website and shown to have completed, which were never started or done.But only one work was existing and other five works were non-existent. Junior Engineer Dushmanta Kisan, who accompanied Ombudsman during the spot visit & inquiry, misguided the Ombudsman by telling lies. Though the culverts were constructed by Rural Works Deptt, Kisan told that they were constructed under MGNREGA.
The Panchayat Executive Officer Sushil Nimalpuri manufactured concocted documents, bills & vouchers. He even registered his wife as a vendor and illegally transferred lakhs of money to her account.Sushil Nimalpuri have tampered all the accounts, billed for the wage and materials that never existed, and the MGNREGA Fund have been misappropriated deliberately to the benefits of the officials. In absence of the work itself, payment against wages to labors and production of material bills is obviously points out to the criminal activities of the executing officials of forgery of bills and documents and misappropriation of Government funds. All officials colluded together in the whole workout.
G.R.S. denied to have any Register in the Gram Panchayat Office.in the Gram Panchayat Office like Asset Register, Sub-Cash Book, Measurement Book, Work Register (Register–V), Material Procurement report/register,(Register- VII) , Complaint Register( Register-VI) Register-I (Register For Job Card Application, Job Card Registration, Job Card Issue And Household Employment Reports), Register–II (Register For:- Gram Sabha (Meeting) – Minutes, Resolutions And Prioritised List Of Works , Special Social Audit Gram Sabha (Meeting) – Minutes, Resolutions And Action Taken Report) Register–III (Demand For Work, Allocation of Works and Payments of Wages Register), Register–IV (Register For Work, ).
After knowing the villagers’ complain and Ombudsman’s plan of inquiry, the block administration jumped into action and committed even more blunders. PEO Nimalpuri returned Rs.22 lakhs cash to BDO Dungdung in the presence of Asstt Programme Officer Binaya Kumar Pani, Gram Panchayat Extension Officer, JE Kisan, Computer Programmer. APO Pani said that the Computer Programmer (CP) is also responsible for this irregularities. He has uploaded all the false statistics in the MGNREGA website. He is certainly part of the whole nexus and hoax.
The reasons for huge cash transaction are best known to the said BDO and his colleagues. While digital payment is done even for labour payments, such huge cash transaction points out to a serious foul play. Whether this amount was deposited in the office account could not be explained by the block office staff.
Though Ombudsman has passed the order on 31-3-23 for recovery of ₹.42 lakhs from BDO, PEO, JE, JRS jointly or severally and recommended to file FIR before police, vigilance and economic offence wing, District Collector-cum-District Project Coordinator (MGNREGA) is yet to initiate any action.
“This is just a single case in one village out of 2556 habitations in the district. And that to just in a year or two. Similar cases are in scores in other 11 blocks of the district. It is nothing but tip of the iceberg. This Act was promulgated in 2005. One can thus imagine extent of corruption for last 15-17 years”, said Rasmi Ranjan Dora, a right activist of the district.
Akshay Mallick, the present BDO of Chandrapur block is aware about the said irregularities and said that a proposal had been placed this year to complete Surlu-Sana Pankala road. Biswajit Mishra, Asstt Executive Engineer assured the investigation team of Society for Fast Justice to go through the order of Ombudsman and work on the gaps in the context of the road construction.
