Audit finds rules bent, money diverted in Bengal’s housing plan for rural poor

Barely a month before West Bengal holds panchayat elections, the CPM-led Left Front Government faces a severe indictment from the state’s Accountant General...

Barely a month before West Bengal holds panchayat elections, the CPM-led Left Front Government faces a severe indictment from the state’s Accountant General for alleged corruption and fraud in the manner in which it has implemented the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) — housing for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe families below the poverty line (BPL).

The latest audit report of Panchayati Raj institutions placed in the Assembly is based on a nine-month performance audit of all 20 districts of the state by 50 teams from the AG’s office. It has alleged a sweeping range of irregularities: from allotment of IAY houses to non-BPL families, absence of any action plan for allotment and distributing ownership titles to only men when the scheme mandates that it be given to women or couples. About 70% of the 3354 Gram Panchayats in the state are controlled by the CPM.

When contacted, Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Surjya Kant Mishra said: “The report will be discussed by the Public Accounts Committee and only then can we initiate action.” Prinicipal Secretary M N Roy said: “I don’t believe that there are large-scale irregularities. I have asked for a detailed report.”

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The audit covered all Zilla Parishads (the upper-most tier of the PRI), Panchayat Samitis (middle tier) and Gram Panchayats (lowest tier) for the years 2004-05. The Centre funds 75 per cent of the cost and the state the rest. Consider its key findings:

• Rs 37.67 crore was spent on building pucca dwelling units and upgrading huts in as many as 1,573 Gram Panchayats where not a single beneficiary was from a BPL family. This despite clear guidelines that beneficiaries be chosen from the BPL list prepared on the basis of priority criteria, such as SC/ST, victims of atrocities, SC/ST households headed by widows and unmarried women and SC/ST households affected by natural calamities like riots, physically and mentally challenged persons.

• It was mandatory under the scheme that each Gram Panchayat independently prepare and approve an Annual Action Plan ( AAP) before the beginning of the financial year. Almost 800 Gram Panchayats neither prepared nor approved any such plan. Instead, these panchayats spent a total of Rs 22.2 crore in selecting beneficiaries outside the AAP.

• In 1,328 Gram Panchayats, 68,245 sanitary latrines and in 1,592 panchayats, 78,766 smokeless chullahs — both integral components of the scheme — were not constructed although the full amount of Rs 259.54 crore was given to beneficiaries in two instalments. All pay orders were signed by pradhans.

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• The scheme envisaged that ownership of huts constructed or upgraded under the scheme be conferred on the wife or alternatively on both the wife and the husband as a couple. But in 67,929 cases in 2,762 gram panchayats, ownership of huts — built at a cost of Rs 105.21 crore — was conferred solely on the male member of the family.

• Financial assistance was given without valid land title or document, also mandatory under the scheme. There were 23,366 cases in which a total sum of Rs 36.38 crore was disbursed to beneficiaries who had no records of ownership of the land on which their huts were constructed.

All the 18 Zilla Parishads (the district councils) were been found to have indulged in this “malpractice” without proper verification. Of the 18, two are ruled by the Congress and the rest by the CPM.