RTI plea exposes fraud in Indira Awaas Yojana

Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 24

Despite detecting an alleged embezzlement in the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) and recovering Rs14.2 lakh from nine panchayats, the culprits are being sheltered by their political masters, alleged an RTI activist who unearthed the “embezzlement”.

RTI activist Jagshir Singh said the case file was buried after recovery of Rs14.2 lakh and no action was taken against the erring sarpanchs in the past seven years.

“If an amount of over Rs14 lakh can be recovered from nine villages, then imagine the magnitude of the embezzlement across the state,” Jagshir said.

It was in 2008 that Jagshir sought a report of expenditure incurred on building pucca houses for the poor under the IAY in 2007 through the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The report exposed blatant misuse of funds distributed under Indira Awaas Yojana.

“The distribution of grant to the poor for making pucca houses was merely eyewash. Actually, it were the rich and the influential landlords of the village, who were enjoying the grant by stating themselves to be poor,” he said.

He had lodged his complaint to the then Block Development Panchayat Officer (BDPO) in Jagraon.

BDPO, Jagraon, then issued a letter to all panchayats in February 2009 directing the sarpanchs of these nine villages that non-deserving people should not avail funds under the IAY.

“What transpired was staggering. While I had lodged a complaint against Pabbian village panchayat in Mullanpur for indulging in irregularities of funds issued under IAY, I was shocked to find that eight more villages had also committed a similar fraud with the department and gave money, meant for the poor, to affluent people of the village,” Jagshir said.

Till October 2009, the department had received Rs14. 2 lakh surrendered by village panchayats. “The panchayats had received the funds in 2007 and it was only when the irregularities were detected that these nine panchayats agreed to return the money. If I had not sought the report under the RTI, the money would have been usurped,” Jagshir said.

He said after receiving the amount, the Revenue Department sat quietly over the issue and did not take action against panchayats.

“For three years, I kept meeting one Revenue Department officers after another requesting them to probe the matter at a larger scale as it could unearth a major siphoning of funds meant for the poor, but the officials kept on discouraging me. Finally, in 2013 I lodged a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner (DC), DIG, Chief Secretary and Director Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, Punjab.

Following my complaint, the officials ordered a probe in the matter. Secretary, zila parishad and BDPO-Sudhar conducted inquiries and indicted all nine panchayat members of committing irregularities and suggested action against the erring panchayat members in the report.