Friday, August 22, 2008

Alleged fraudulent withdrawal of NREGS funds detected in Ccpur

IMPHAL, Aug 21: Fraudulent withdrawal from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, NREGS allegedly by a village chief by cheating job card holders and without taking up actual physical works has been detected at Singngat block of Churachandpur district in Manipur.

Police has registered a case regarding the alleged misappropriation of NREGS funds by cheating job card holders after receiving a complaint from the block development officer, BDO and also project officer, NREGS of Singngat block (Smt) Mannuamching on August 18 last, an official source said Thursday.

Mannuamching in her complaint to the Churachandpur police accused the chairman of Behiang village, Paudoumang Ngaihte for the misappropriation of the NREGS funds.

In her complaint note, the project officer said the chief had dishonestly cheated job card holders of Behiang village and misappropriated more than Rs. 2 lakhs from the total sanctioned amount of Rs.5,01,831 including for the second phase.

She further accused the chief of engaging a JCB for works under NREGS so as to allow deduction of wages of the job card holders while there was a total ban on contractors and labour replacing machinery under the NREGS.

The chief also shifted the worksite to Behiang main village instead of implementing the work at the actual project site, she added.

The BDO also alleged that the village chief had withdrawn the whole amount of Rs. 2,55,200 for the work to be taken up at a jatropha plantation at Suangphu village under NREGS without carrying out the actual works.

It may be mentioned that as no panchayat bodies are functioning in the hill districts of Manipur, the chiefs of the villages were nominated as representative of each village for assisting in engagement of labourers and preparation of projects by the block level officers or project officer for NREGS.

The NREGS has now been implemented in all the nine districts of the state after the National Rural Employment Generation Act was extended in the whole of the state from the current fiscal year.

The scheme was first implemented in Tamenglong district and later extended to two other hill districts of the state, Churachandpur and Chandel. The other districts of the state were included from the current financial year, 2008-09.

Churachandpur district is among the districts which claimed to be progressing satisfactority in the implementation of the works despite various obstacles like snatching of job cards and assualts on villagers for not surrendering their job cards by armed men suspected to be militants in the recent times.

Source: http://ifp.co.in/

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