Salipur: A strange policy of the Water Resources department has come to the fore in Salipur area of Cuttack as the department has started cleaning weeds from its branch canals by spending lakhs of rupees when water is being released through Kendrapara canal. Locals alleged that lakhs of rupees are being misappropriated on the pretext of canal clean-up even as water is not reaching the lower end of the canal.
Reports said canal nos- 3, 4, 5 and 6 under Salipur water resources division are the branch canals of Kendrapara canal. As per official guidelines, canals are supposed to be cleaned and dredged up to 2-inch depth while breaches, if any, are to be plugged well before the release of water. Canal cleaning work is done under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) so as to create scope of manual labour for the job card holders. But here is an exception. JCB machines are used in this work in violation of official guidelines, it was alleged. “Contractors are minting money from this work.
Machines are used to pull out grass and weeds from canals when they are filled with water,” locals said. More than Rs 17 lakh has been sanctioned for cleaning of canal no-6; Rs 11 lakh for canal no-4; Rs 10 lakh for canal no-3 and an equal amount for canal no-5 in the current year. Farmers alleged that beds of the canals need to be dredged and cleaned and that too without water. “Funds are being looted in the name of grass removal from the canal while machines are used in violation of the MGNREGS norms,” they alleged, demanding that the higher authorities should pay attention to the lapses.
Farmers said that they had visited the offices of the water resources department at Barabodia and Dharmagatpur to file complaints regarding the ongoing irregularities, but the offices were found closed. They also alleged that the assistant engineer at the water resources office at Kendupatana is always found absent. Contacted, assistant engineer Akshay Kumar Mallick said that machines are used only at places where manual labour is not possible