Charity begins at home for Bathinda village sarpanch

Bharat Khanna

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 14

The Akali sarpanch and panchayat members in CM’s ancestral village Ghudda have begin charity from home by getting toilets constructed under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Some persons close to local Akali leaders too achieved success in get the toilets constructed. However, a number of poor Dalits in this village have even excluded from the list of the toilet scheme, while some others have faced debt by getting toilets constructed on their own on promise of reimbursement by local Akali leaders and panchayat members.

Ghudda village Akali sarpanch Sukhmandar Singh has got a toilet constructed in his village house, while a toilet in the same house for his brother has been approved for construction. A number of poor Dalits are crying foul as despite being a deserving beneficiary they have been denied construction of toilets.

“I don’t have a toilet, but my name is not on the list. Only near and dear ones of Akalis have got Rs 15,000 under the scheme,” said Jagga Singh.

Rajpal Kaur said, “My husband Boota Singh is a daily wager and nephew of a panchayat member. On his promise we got a toilet constructed by taking loan, but even after three months we haven’t got the money.”

The sarpanch claimed that the officials of the Block Development Panchayat Office cut short the list to less than 150 from 800 names the village panchayat passed.

ADC Development, Bathinda, Shena Aggrawal claimed, “The list was prepared by the gram panchayat and if anyone deserving remains can be added later but primarily our teams verify only those who are listed as beneficiary.” Sangat BDPO Surjit Kaur claimed to have joined recently and the lists were made earlier.