Graft sweeps away CM’s safai karamchari scheme

of corruption were prima facie found to be true,” said Rambodh Maurya, director of the state Panchayati Raj department.

“So far the recruitment process has been completed in 45 out of 71 districts of the state and appointment letters to 60,098 sanitation workers have been delivered,” he, however, added.

Though the scheme

does not make any distinction on the basis of caste and religion for the recruitment, and 21 per cent and 27 per cent of the vacancies are reserved for the Schedule Caste and the OBCs respectively, it has been reported that in over a dozen districts upper caste people recruited as safai karamcharis have hired Dalits to do their work and pay them Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 per month.

“If Brahmins and Rajputs have been recruited as safai karamcharis then they will have to discharge their duties otherwise they will face action,” said Maurya.

As per the government order, as many as 1, 08,848 sanitation workers are proposed to be recruited in the payscale of Rs 2,550 to 3,200. Since the total annual expenditure in hiring them would be Rs 850 crore, the state government had made a provision of Rs 756 crore in the current financial year’s budget.

Maurya said the department is not directly involved with the recruitment process and instead it is being conducted by district magistrates.

“We are not directly involved in the recruitment process which is being done by the district magistrates at the district level and around four to five selection committees, keeping in view the number of vacancies and applicants, have been set up in each district,” Maurya added.

The selection committees are headed by the chief development officer, additional district magistrate or the district development officer of each district.

The scheme for recruitment of sanitation workers was announced by Mayawati within 24 hours of the then Union Finance Minister P C Chidambaram announcing the loan waiver package of Rs 60,000 crore for small and marginal farmers.

There was no mention of the sanitation worker scheme in the state budget, which was presented by the state Fianance Minister Lalji Verma in the state assembly on February 12, 2008.