KAMALPUR, FEBRUARY 26 (TIWN): In this state of 'golden era(!)' the government often claims to be providing the unemployed youths with opportunities of alternative livlihood. By different means the government claims the same aand also produces documental evidences. And the forest department plays an.important part in this process by providing saplings of different species to the beneficiaries. But in maximum cases the schemes and efforts bear nothing due to the negligence of the beneficiaries and the lack of supervision at local level.

Under the Srirampur forest beat of Durgachowmuhani forest range in the sub-division distribution of thousands of saplings costing lakhs of rupeed remained useless. According to the information of Srirampur Beat Officer Sachindra Debbarma, in the year 2015-16, 24 beneficiaries of Shyamraichara VC were supplied with saplings of different species. Each beneficiary was provided with 250 Longchuk, 250 Betelnut, 250 Lemon and 100 Banana saplings.

The beneficiaries were also provided with manual labours for preparing the gardens under MGNREGA and cash amounts for materials. Regarding the saplings the department had to incurr an amount of 1, 77, 600 rupees. And the total.cost of the project was not less than 10, 00, 00 rupees. And the statistics remained for only one beat in one year for a single VC. If all the beats of both the Durgachowmuhani and the Salema ranges got taken into consideration then the amount would no less than 2 to 3 crores of rupees a year.

Now, it remained a matter that, the implementing officers also used to pocket huge amounts from.the pockets. But in reality only one or two gardens could be found in the VC among the 24 beneficiaries.

It got revealed that, the beneficiaries never performed the jobs of weeding, manuring etc properly. And the local panchayats also not supervised the gardens. Here questions rose about the logic of such huge waste of public money.