Cartoons in Punjab, ghosts in Gujarat get wages

THE cartoon scam unearthed in Gurdaspur’s Gazikot village is a darkly comic but deeply troubling example of the creative lengths to which corruption can go. Panchayat members reportedly used caricatures painted on the gate of a government school to fake worker attendance under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Images of beneficiaries posing beside these drawings were uploaded as proof of labour — enabling payments for work that was never done. That such a scam could be executed using school wall art — ironically created under the Punjab School Education Board’s BALA scheme — reflects a dangerous mix of misgovernance, moral decay and technical loopholes. The scam was so brazen that even two brothers allegedly close to panchayat officials were "represented" as cartoons and paid for fictitious work.