MiD DAY investigation blows lid off fake job cards scam; Rs 10 crore rural employment scheme fraud is expected to exceed...

Rs 500 Crore!

MiD DAY investigation blows lid off fake job cards scam; Rs 10 crore rural employment scheme fraud is expected to exceed...

Officials of the Bangalore South Taluk Panchayat office have siphoned off over Rs 10 crore granted by the Centre under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA), the Lokayukta learnt after raids that followed a tip-off by MiD DAY.

The Lokayukta conducted the raids around the city on Tuesday, and now suspects the scam may exceed Rs 500 crore.

The raids revealed that instead of providing employment, taluk panchayat officials hired a few unemployed youths illegally to create a database of fake records to account for the money they allegedly siphoned off in connivance with executive officer Ashwath Reddy.

The Bangalore Urban Zilla Panchayat released Rs 1,014 lakh to the Bangalore South Taluk Panchayat office between August and December 2009 for implementation of the scheme.

The idea was to provide 100 days' work to villagers who had applied for the job at a wage rate of Rs 82 per day.
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The right way

The NREGA was introduced by the Congress-led UPA at the Centre and has often been cited as an achievement, though in reality it seems to have filled more babu pockets than hungry stomachs.
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The relevant act stipulates that villagers belonging to SC/ST, and those below the poverty line have to apply for work under the scheme with the secretary of the gram panchayat concerned, and he in turn has to acknowledge the application, verify the details given about members of the family and get them registered.
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He then has to allocate the work to be executed by them and issue notices to attend work at a specified place and for a given period.
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The secretary has to enter the details of wages paid to them. Under no circumstances should the job card rest with the panchayat secretary or anybody but the labourer. The scheme also strictly prohibits work execution through contractors.

The scam

In all the 15 gram panchayats, local leaders and contractors in connivance with the gram panchayat secretaries allegedly created fake job cards to obtain grants.
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The grants were allegedly got through executive officer Ashwath Reddy on a commission basis.
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In addition, many junior engineers and assistant executive engineers of south taluk allegedly got involved with contractors in creating estimates and fake job cards.

It has been found that Rs 1011 lakh has already been spent in six months.u00a0 Fake job cards are now being hurriedly created to account for the money spent.

This card 'creation' work is on a war footing for five days in the Banashankari Taluk Pancha-yat office for Chunchanakuppe Grama Panchayat and K Gollahalli Grama Panchayat.

Fake job cards

Contractors and local political leaders would speak to the family head, and ask him about the members of his family.

If there were four members in a family, say a man, his wife, son and daughter, all of them would be treated as a separate family.

First, the name of the head of the family would be recorded in a job card and then six to seven fake names would be entered in it.

Then, in the second card, his wife's name would appear as head of the family, again followed by six to seven fake names to make up the rest of her family.
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In the third card, the son's name would appear as head of the family, again followed by six to seven fake names.

In the fourth card, the daughter's name would appear as head of the family along with another six to seven fake names.

So, instead of one job card consisting of four members of the family, there would be four job cards together consisting of 24 to 28 names, and these would be projected as labourers availing of the scheme.
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The money paid to these labourers who did not exist would be allegedly pocketed by the officials.