Bhubaneswar: Taking a serious note of lapses in implementation of MGNREGS published in this newspaper, the state Lokayukta has suo motu registered a case (LY-603/2020) and has scheduled the hearing to July 20, 2020, a report said Thursday.
The OP report, published June 11, 2020, had stated that while the government had been laying a lot of stress on creating jobs for migrant workers and locals under MGNREGS during the lockdown, the scheme had allegedly been an instrument of massive irregularities in Hatadihi block of Keonjhar district. The report claimed lakhs of rupees had been embezzled through fake muster rolls while no work had been done in reality.
What was shocking was that the scamsters had shown dead people, government servants, migrants and elderly people on records whom work had been provided and wages paid.
The scam was reported from Sholapata village of Shalania panchayat. As per official records, work of a farm pond was awarded in the name Adhikari Nayak, 70. The cost estimated was Rs1.5 lakh. The project had not been approved by the Gram Sabha.
The work code was 2403009/IAF/10518773. It was stated that the work was executed between May 27 and June 9 with the help of 95 job cardholders. Accordingly, muster rolls were doctored. In the second week, the job card holders were paid Rs 1,449 for seven days. Serial number 3956 in the muster roll was assigned to a dead person.