Taking them to task

All it took Verma to detect the fraud was a close reading of records. EGS works can be carried out only after a technical verification and administrative approvals. She realised that the number of EGS workers in a day was extremely high8212;over one lakh8212;but the administrative approvals were much lower.

An inquiry instituted by her showed that her signatures as well as those of the deputy collector were being forged. The office of the collector, deputy collector and the EGS were being bypassed and instead work was being allotted by the agricultural department.

After the inquiry, the number of labourers on the EGS record fell to 1,134 a day. If the previous number was genuine where are all those people now, asks Verma?

The EGS mission is 8216;8216;work for anyone who wants it8217;8217;8212;meaning work is allotted to villagers of those drought-prone villages where more than 50 per cent of crops are affected due to drought. It was introduced by the Maharashtra government, post 1972 famine. But over the years the meaning of work for anyone who wants it has become too literal.

Solapur, says Verma, registers the largest number of EGS works in the state on water conservation. Yet its ground water level hasn8217;t risen. In 2003-2004 as also in 2004-2005 when the rains were moderate, the administration supplied a number of water tankers to Solapur.

Once the fraud was detected, Verma moved quickly, lodging two police complaints against a clerk in the revenue department and two others in the agriculture department. But even that was not easy. The police refused to entertain her complaint. Says Pune Divisional Commissioner Prabhakar Karandikar: 8216;8216;The police seem to have been asked to resist a deeper probe.8217;8217;

Verma fought it one whole night in the police station, threatening to directly send her complaint to the state government.

More than a month has gone by since she lodged the complaint but Solapur police commissioner Jagan Nath is yet to track down the absconders. Police officers Dinesh Katke and Rajendra Nimbalkar investigating the case say, 8216;8216;Our search for the absconders is on and we have raided their houses. We have also sent our team to possible hideouts. We will nab them soon.8217;8217;

PREDICTABLY enough Verma was given marching orders to Pune on the night that she lodged the complaint. Her transfer was stayed in early August. Employees of the agriculture department responded by submitting mass resignations8212;not to the agriculture commissionerate as is the procedure8212;but to various politicians!

As Karandikar says, 8216;8216;Instead of the employees working for the EGS scheme being at the mercy of the administration, the administration is at the mercy of these employees thanks to the vindictive stand they have taken.8217;8217;

The agriculture department employees are now articulating two arguments. Why are they alone being questioned? What about the revenue department which has an equal role to play?

Karandikar says show cause notices were issued in July itself to revenue talathis of all the 11 talukas, questioning them about the number of inspections they have undertaken in 20038212;a responsibility they have to carry out regularly.

THE sleepy town of Solapur, once a prosperous textile centre, is dotted with bungalows of clerks of the agriculture and revenue officials in plush localities. In these lies the story of misappropriation.

When Verma asked her officers to conduct the reading of muster rolls in those circles where maximum works of EGS have been undertaken, the results were astounding. Surprise visits to the villages found gross irregularities. In a number of cases, technical sanctions and administrative approvals had been forged; muster rolls were found to be blank but endorsed by circle agricultural officer and taluka agricultural officer. Names of dead people and others who were not even residents of these villages were listed in the muster rolls see box.

AFTER the inquiry, Verma decided to go the whole way. She began an earnest orientation workshop of all talathis to undertake public muster roll reading in 200 villages, beginning August 19. Verma is familiar with social auditing. As collector of Amravati, she tackled the issue of controversial land records by holding 8216;public readings8217; by which she set right the case of 10,000 odd land records.

Karandikar simultaneously issued a directive to all the five collectors in his division to conduct public readings in all villages covered under the EGS scheme.

Then came the hurdle. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh asked Karandikar to stall the public readings and last week rushed his EGS secretary, Ramesh Kanade, to Solapur to conduct a probe. The press statement he issued hid as much as it revealed. Admitting that there was large scale corruption in EGS works, he said a thorough probe was necessary and that8217;s why he was stationing a senior bureaucrat there.

He added that while the probe was on, the EGS works will go on. Verma says she had never stopped any work8212;she just wanted to ensure the formalities were followed.

Now, all eyes are on Kanade who has returned to the Mantralaya and will soon submit his report.

Support for Verma has come from expected quarters. Right to information and social activists like Anna Hazare and Aruna Roy have declared they will soon hold 8216;jan sunwais8217; by asking for muster roll copies under the RTI.

Karandikar, meanwhile, is optimistic that some good will come out of this case. He hopes the administration will realise that the small initiatives under the EGS8212;though essential8212;are only short-term. There is a real need for long-term planning that can only be done by involving villagers in the planning stage itself. Perhaps, he says, a clue can be taken from the Central Drought Prone Area programme where the village panchayat members and self-help groups participate in the planning stage and where only those projects are undertaken which are found to be useful to the villagers.

But till that happens, it is left to individual efforts to clean up the system.

Roll call

ARUNA ROY, founder, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatana
Under the Maharshtra Right to Information RTI, the Central RTI Act and the EGA now passed in Parliament, the muster roll is required to be publicly displayed, even when works are in progress.

In Rajasthan for instance, in the period between 2002 and 2004, the siphoning of funds in the drought relief work was brought down dramatically because of stringent rules framed by the government, regarding the suo moto obligation of the implementing agency to display the muster roll and the right of all citizens to access and check the muster rolls. We believe that the suppression of information regarding the muster rolls, is a sure and certain way to aid and abet corruption.

ANNA HAZARE, Right to Information activist
Chief Minister Vilarao Deshmukh8217;s stay on the reading of muster rolls in public is not a wise decision. Section 4 of the MRTI categorically provides for more transparency in economic matters of each government department. In fact, as per the RTI Act, each government department should even post all information related to cost and expenditure of various works and projects on their official website. If we have to empower people, we have to equip them with information.

ARUN BHATIA, former Collector, Dhulia
The state government very well knows misappropriation of funds is going on under the EGS scheme since the last 22 years, but for obvious reasons has not done anything about it. The only answer is that, besides the social audit, physical audit which is present in some developed countries should be made essential. It will help weed out 80 per cent corruption in the country. We must have an independent agency which will conduct physical verification of works undertaken, be it roads, dams or water conservation tanks.