NREGS scam: Will CBI be successful?

BALANGIR: Controversies have always dogged  the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Balangir district with crores of Central Government funds going down the drain. Chinks in the scheme have always come to light.  The CBI has now been entrusted with the job of inquiring into the NREGS frauds in the district after the Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) filed a PIL in the Supreme Court. The big question, however, is can CBI dig out the four-year old NREGS irregularities. There is every possibility that the files  related to the scheme which remained with district and block officials, are likely to be destroyed.NREGS was a viable alternative to migration in Balangir, but controversies and confusion went hand in hand with the scheme here. Sometimes, brokers chipped in  to offer jobs to the villagers and at other times, the villagers had to cough up money to avail of work. Two years back, Vigilance sleuths had arrested the executive officer (EO) and the panchayat secretary of Mirdhapali gram panchayat on charges of misappropriation of NREGS funds. As per the norms of the scheme, villagers were to be given jobs. But the erring official collected the job cards of 124 villagers, got them signed and registered in the muster roll as paid. There are several such complaints in the district.Senior Congress leader Narasingha Mishra, who had brought to light NREGS bunglings when he was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said CBI was efficient and it has specialised investigators to unearth the irregularities.He said he knew it for sure that documents and signatures had been forged in many cases and payments made in the names of non-existing persons.In another case, people had to pay to avail of work under NREGS. Vikalpa, a member of western Orissa NREGS consortium,  presented its survey report recently at a NREGS job seekers’ meet at Tankapani village, 90 km from here. The report said that 63 per cent of the job seekers paid Rs 200 to 300 to get a job card. A villager Sraddhakar Hans said that he had to pay Rs 500 to get the work order for a work that had already been done under the scheme.“A block official in Khaprakhol block took Rs 500 from me promising to check-measure my work and then release money,” alleged Hans. He said that they had completed measuring the work four months back, but are yet to give him the amount.