Sarpanches, officials grabbed big money in ‘Rs 100-cr scam’: Probe

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, August 29

The preliminary inquiry report in the alleged Rs 100 crore embezzlement scam in Ludhiana submitted on Monday revealed that a huge amount was siphoned off by sarpanches of six villages in Ludhiana in connivance with department officials.

Records not provided to DDPO

The inquiry committee headed by DDPO had sought details, including bank transactions, copies of the permissions sought from the head office, voucher register, technical reports, approval letters, etc. But the BDPO refused to respond to the calls and communications sent to her.

The report, submitted to the government by Ludhiana’s District Development and Panchayat Officer (DDPO), has found that the Block Development and Panchayat Officer (BDPO), Ludhiana-2, did not provide record to the inquiry officer despite repeated reminders for the same.

As part of the inquiry, the committee had sought details, including bank transactions, copies of the permissions sought from the head office, voucher register, technical reports, approval letters, etc. But the BDPO refused to respond to the calls and communications sent to her.

ADC issues search warrant

Taking note of the non-cooperation by BDPO Ludhiana-2 in providing official records to the inquiry committee, Additional DC (Development) Rupinderpal Singh has exercised his powers as magistrate and issued search warrants against three panchayat secretaries to procure the records.

Following that, the DDPO got bank account statements of different panchayats on its own level from banks and it was found that throwing the rules to the wind, the money was withdrawn from the fixed deposit accounts of the panchayat and arbitrarily payments were done without any justifiable work.

Citing the example of village Dhanansu, the inquiry report said Rs 80 lakh was withdrawn through 15 cheques from accounts of panchayat in a single day. “BDPO, Ludhiana-2, Simrat Kaur and her staff did not present the record. It is enough to conclude that a huge amount was siphoned off from award money given to panchayats in lieu of the village land acquisition,” the report said.

The issue pertains to six villages of Ludhiana district, Gram Panchayat Salempur, Salkiana, Bounkar Gujran, Kadiana Khurd and Dhanansu, where between 2016-17 and 2020-21, 986 acres of land were acquired by the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority and the PSIEC for the Cycle Valley Project.

Panchayats got a compensation of Rs 242 crore as the village common land had been acquired. As per the rules, the entire amount was required to be spent on purchasing common land for the village but around Rs 100 crore was withdrawn from the accounts of the panchayats.

When the issue was brought to the knowledge of Minister for Rural Development and Panchayats Laljit Singh Bhullar, he had ordered an inquiry and sought a report on it within two weeks.