ADM intervenes: DKDA-OPELIP & AKSSUS NGO Return Bribe Money to an Assertive PVTG Woman
Badal Tah,Odishabarta
Rayagada, May 15: “I sent the money for your and other officers’ enjoyment. Did you get it ?” This was a simple & straight question from Timi Pushika, a woman belonging to Primarily Vulnerable Tribal Group(PVTG) named Dangaria Kandha from Balapai village under Chancharaguda gram panchayat in Bissam Cuttack block. According to Timi, one Sahadeb came to her village and asked her Rs.6500 from her as the share for the officers’ “Bhoji Bhat”. Sahadeb through a video call from Ramesh Nalla, a Community Resource Person took away the said money from Timi. Nalla works in an NGO called AKSSUS supported by the govt project named Odisha Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups Empowerment and Livelihoods Improvement Programme (OPELIP) under Dangaria Kandha Development Agency(DKDA).
“OPELIP staff gave me a digital weighing machine, a bicycle & two chairs for doing a seasonal business with a total budget of Rs.27000. Then took back Rs.6500 in the plea of expenses towards big babus with least working capital left to run my business. And this is the exact reason I have travelled a long distance from Niyamagiri hills to Collector’s Office to ask the Collector whether he had received the money she gave to Nalla via Sahadeb”, asserted Timi before the Additional District Magistrate(ADM) Sri Dharmananda Behera. Then she narrated her woes about how she had been cheated with Rs.5000 with an assurance of supplying her with a water pump, how she was running from pillar to post to get her honorarium as a cook for last fourteen months. The ADM and a few other working journalists were shocked with Timi’s assertion on the rampant corruption in the OPELIP project at DKDA Chatikana.
OPELIP, funded with a soft loan from International Fund for Agriculture Development(IFAD), Rome, Italy through Ministry of Economic Affairs, GOI as the borrower, became effective on 18 March 2016.
The project overall goal is to achieve enhanced living conditions and reduced poverty of the target group households. This project development objective is to enable improved livelihoods and food and nutrition security primarily for 32,090 PVTG households, 14,000 other tribal households and 16,356 other poor and Schedules Caste (SC) households (62446). This in turn will be achieved via building the capacity of the target households, securing them their entitlements over land and forest, improving their agricultural practices for enhanced production, promoting income-generating micro-enterprises for livelihoods and ensuring access to education, health and other services and improving community infrastructure.
“Timi’s case is the tip of the ice berg. For the last eight years OPELIP-DKDA in Chatikana through its Annual Work Plans & Budget(AWPB) of Rs.66 crores has plundered major chunk of the money like the way Timi has described. A rough estimate depicts that around 25% has been utilised as PC/bribe by deceiving the Dangaria Kandha. At the entrance of the village big hoardings and wall paintings are exhibited depicting OPELIP schemes and success stories, which later are established as concocted”, said Sri Rabindra Patakhandal, Convenor of Suchana Adhikar Mancha.
As Timi was illiterate like almost all the villagers in her village, she requested the ADM to note her grievances to which ADM budged. Though ensuring access to education to the PVTG is one of the primary development objectives of the project, sheer illiteracy in Balapai and its main village Kinjamjodi makes the objective a mockery.
ADM assured Timi to institute an inquiry through BDO, Bissam Cuttack. Interestingly enough, before the inquiry by the authorities the next day, the staff of DKDA-OPELIP-AKSSUS arrived in Timi’s village and returned Rs.11500, the money they extorted from Timi as bribe. Alongwith BDO, the ADM himself with the project staff went to Balapai and assured Timi to give back Rs.21000 as her honorarium towards cooking food for the children in her hamlet. “Finally Timi has won. It is because of her courage, simplicity and truthfulness.
She has become an icon not only before the PVTG but also the entire poor ommunity. Though ADM has diplomatically said that no govt employee is involved in this Timi Pushika episode, then who is responsible in returning Rs.21000 as cash to Timi though there is a govt guideline to transfer the same to her bank account (?).
This DKDA-OPELIP-AKSSUS NGO racket as plunderers of taxpayers money and roadblocks to the development of an ultra poor tribe like Dangaria Kandha needs to be taken to task”, lamented Rasmiranjan Dora, a farmer leader.
