Friends,
Social audit , transparency, accountability of grass root authorities is incorporated in the law-- but how does it work in practice?
Please look at Visit note of Shn B K Sinha Secretary (Rural Development) to villages in Jharkhand available at http://nrega.nic.in/netnrega/home.aspx, the official web site of the The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. He made these field visits, in response to serious complaints; his findings are SHOCKING.
On 3rd March, 2011 he received e-mail from Dr Jean Dreze, intimating that another MGNREGA activist Shri Niyamat Ansari, a resident of Kope Gram Panchayat and a Mahatma Gandhi NREGA and Civil Right Activist was murdered after having exposed a case of brazen embezzlement of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA funds in Rankikala Gram Panchayat. In response to this report, an FIR was lodged against the main culprit, Shri Kailash Sahu, former BDO of Manika. More than Rs. 2 lakhs were also recovered from him and his accomplice, Shri Basudeo Nagesia, the Panchayat Sevak of Rankikala. While the BDO and Panchayat Sevak were caught because their names are on the fudged records, it is strongly suspected that the real mastermind behind this scam is Shankar Dubey, a notoriously corrupt local contractor (himself protected by a former MLA of this area). The family members of the deceased Niyamat Ansari strongly believed that the `goondas' who had come to his house were Shri Shankar Dubey's men. On 2ndMarch 2011, around 7 PM, Niyamat Ansari was picked up from his house and beaten mercilessly. He died of injuries before it was possible for his relatives to remove him to the nearest hospital, in Latehar. FACTS OF THIS CASE ARE STRANGER THAN FICTION.
This is not a solitary instance. It has bee reported to National Human Rights Commission that there is a spate of murders, suicides and arrests of NREGA activists in
Jharkhand during the last few months. These include:
1. Murder of Lalit Mehta (Palamau District) on 14 May 2008.
2. Murder of Kameshwar Yadav (Giridih District) on 7 June 2008.
3. Suicide of Tapas Soren (Hazaribagh District) on 2 July 2008.
4. Suicide of Shivshankar Sahu (Palamau District) on 17 August 2008.
5. Murder of Rajeshwar Das (Deoghar District) on 8 October 2008.
6. Arrest of Bhukhan Singh and Niyamat Ansari (Latehar District) on 15 February 2009.
Documentary evidence is before the authorities.It seems that they are helpless before powerful vested interests, who are siphoning off money, by manipulating the system. Is the entire public administration system totally helpless ?
Dhirendra Krishna IA&AS (Retired)
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