AGARTALA, January 27 (TIWN Exclusive): Truth speaks for itself! Notwithstanding, the CPI (M) led left government deserves accolade not for the all around scams and crimes against women but it should be praised for deriving innovative ways to loot public money. The flow of corruption cycle follows as Amount allotted for development works --> Amount credited in joint bank account --> Payment made to third party (Suppliers or workers) where the development works itself are reported not to start even. Thus an amount of nearly Rs. 43 lakh has been misappropriated. All these aforesaid works are under different Panchayat and village of Bishalgargh Rural Development (RD) block. And the same relates to fiscal 2013-14. Management Information System (MIS) entries have been made in respect of those (Rural Employment Guarantee Act) REGA project works in Bisalgarh block which in reality have not been not executed, at all. The Implementing Officer (IO) was Kishore Banik, who is now behind the bar. Police might have not traced these vague works against which money was shown incurred. For obvious reasons tainted BDO Bimal Chakraborty and his godfathers also might have got due share of scam money.

Though the said amount is nothing nut a drop of water in the ocean like amount looted by Bimal. Formation of different roads, land development works and other grass root level infrastructural works were to be done against different work orders.

Inspite of opposition’s one after another expose of MGNREGA scam, the government and concerned officials are in no mood to change its practice  regarding curbing corruption.  

Now, if the fund is shown spent and works not yet started, it depicts nothing but illegally pocketing the money by sections of people.

The centre allots huge corpus for the development of the deprived people and development of the unattended areas of the state and the state government is doing every possible task to use the money for their own personal interest. And tragically, no regular and effective watchdog from the union government is there to look after the same.

Relating to the same, couple of days ago, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) President Birjit Sinha in his first press meet as the President said, “The CPM cadres and government officials are pocketing five to six crore of rupees in each Gao Sabha (Village Council)”. He had further asserted that having Chief Minister as the Chairman, a state level committee on REGA is there and (Birjit Sinha), being one of the members, has informed that upto November only twenty days of work had been done. “Late night works upto 2 to 3 am are going on in the BDO and RD offices for making false entries and undue adjustments to take away the fund, at the direction of Chief Minister himself”, he further  added. 

It is to be mentioned here that the Block Development Officers (BDOs), Sub divisional Magistrates (SDMs) and District Magistrates (DMs) always use the contractual staffs as puppets as very often they are threatened to be terminated from their jobs without any notice.

This is purely done to impress the local political leaders (obviously those in CPIM). It is no surprise to that over the years MGNREGA allocations have been the biggest fund supply for the CPI(M) party and its leaders. During the elections massive looting of MGNREGA fund is done to impress voters.

Under pressure from political leaders and even ministers, senior officials like DMs, SDMs, BDOs instruct the grass root employees by forcing to bow down their heads with the threats of termination. But after Bimal Chakraborty's case in Bishalgrah RD Block the eyes of all have opened. Another big problem on this issue is that most of the Gram Rozgar Sevak (GRS) and Panchayat Secretaries do not have Higher Secondary (HS) pass qualification even.

And taking the advantage of their academic backwardness, the high officials, who have already entered into the good book of political leaders and administrators, are sure to put pressure on them. But the problem is that if such adjustments band implementation reports are prepared, these grass root employees are to face the sheer crisis and in the worst case they may be suspended too when practical verification will be done.

Recently in Tepania block of Udaipur Principal Secretary of R D Department S K Rakesh issued Show Cause notice to a GRS and Engineer (both contractual). During his visit S.K. Rakesh found some irregularities in the adjustments in compare to the actual situation of works against which these adjustments have been made.