MP wakes up to rural job plan corruption

After an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) couple were found to have wealth of over Rs 300 crore, two more IAS officers in Madhya Pradesh are facing the heat for alleged corruption in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

Updated on: Jan 31, 2011, 24:27:07 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) couple were found to have wealth of over Rs 300 crore, two more IAS officers in Madhya Pradesh are facing the heat for alleged corruption in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

The two officers were posted in district Sidhi in north-eastern part of Madhya Pradesh during 2008 when the alleged corruption took place.

The two had allegedly facilitated disbursement of money to non-existent Self Help Groups and payment for work on days, which did not exist such as June 31. There were also allegations of fabrication of muster rolls and paying less than mandated under the MGNREGA law to those enrolled in the scheme.

In addition, huge amount was spent on planting Jatrofa without taking approval of the competent authority, which was declared as failure.

"These are some of the findings of an inquiry done by district prosecution officer in 2008," said Ajay Dubey, RTI national award winner for 2009, and general secretary of NGO Prayatna, which exposed the corruption using the Right To Information (RTI) law.

Finally, the state government has woken up to the corruption in the world's biggest job guarantee scheme in January 2011. The state's Rural Development department has issued a chargesheet against the two officials, in-charge of the scheme in the district in 2008, two years after the state General Administration Department (GAD) asked it to initiate action.

The chargesheet has been sent to the GAD department for serving the officials, who are now serving as district collectors. As per the RTI information, the department has also asked recovery of about Rs 8 crore, which was allegedly siphoned off during the period.

Corruption in MGNREGA is not new. But for the first time explanation is being sought from IAS officers for facilitating the corruption. Dubey said corruption in the scheme has been exposed through RTI in as many as seven districts. "The corruption is over Rs 100 crore," he said. BK Sinha, secretary Rural Development Ministry has also asked officials of the ministry to conduct an inquiry into the allegations and submit a report.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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