Rs 100 cr Panchayat Scam: 4 BDPOs, 6 panchayat secys, sarpanches face chargesheet

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, October 13

The Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Laljit Singh Bhullar today ordered to chargesheet four BDPOs, six panchayat secretaries and six sarpanches in the Rs 100 crore Ludhiana panchayat fund embezzlement scam.

Money was withdrawn illegally

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• The issue pertains to six villages of Ludhiana, including Salempur, Salkiana, Bounkar Gujran, Kadiana Khurd and Dhanansu
• From 2016-17 and 2020-21, these panchayats got Rs 242 crore for acquisition of 986 acres of land by the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority and the PSIEC for the Cycle Valley project
• The money either should have been spent on purchasing the land or kept in bank accounts of the panchayats. However, the money was illegally withdrawn

Taking a serious note of the report submitted to him, Bhullar also ordered to hand over the probe to the Vigilance Bureau. The Tribune broke the story about the scam on August 24.

The probe report found that sarpanches in connivance with officials and contractors had withdrawn Rs 120.87 crore from the bank on their own and the amount was spent without administrative and technical approvals of the department. The policy and guidelines issued by the department say that a panchayat should deposit the money for acquisition of panchayat land in the State Bank of India as fixed deposit. No one has any right to redeem such FDs without the approval of the government. Earlier, the department had pegged the embezzlement amount at Rs 100 crore.

The report has called it ‘an unauthorised expenditure’ and held responsible four BDPOs, six panchayat secretaries, six sarpanches, one officiating sarpanch and other officials of the department. While asking for strict action against the accused as per the preliminary investigation, Bhullar directed higher officials to charge-sheet BDPO Rupinderjit Kaur, Gurpreet Singh, Gurpreet Singh Mangat and Simrat Kaur, Panchayat Secretary Gurmail Singh (now retired), Harpal Singh Randhawa, Bagga Singh, Jashandeep Chandel, Harpal Singh Sahjomajra and Harjit Singh Malhotra and sarpanch, Dhanansu, Sudagar Singh, sarpanch, Salempur, Neha, sarpanch, Sekhewal, Amrik Kaur, sarpanch, Bounkar Gujran, Mukhtiar Singh, officiating panch, Bounkar Gujran, Gurcharan Singh, sarpanch, Selkiana, Harpreet Kaur and sarpanch, Kadiana Khurd, Rajinder Kaur.

Since the local officials and panchayats refused to give the record for the inquiry, the report has recommended that Rs 120.87 crore should be recovered from the officials and sarpanches. The report has also recommended that the case should be handed over to the Vigilance Bureau.