Ranpur: Many cases of misappropriation of Indira Awaas Yojana funds are surfacing in the panchayats of Ranpur block in Nayagarh district.
Some applicants in the Bherupada village of Bajrakote panchayat have received payments as per the Awaas Yojana by furnishing false bills showing their old asbestos sheet roofed houses, thanks to their connections with the block officials of Ranpur.
Many cases of misappropriation of Indira Awaas Yojana funds through fraudulent billing have come out in other panchayats of the block too. Funds allotted by the government under Indira Awaas Yojana have not been used properly.
Work orders worth Rs 75,000 were given to some of the applicants in Bajrakote panchayat in fiscal 2013-14 under the Indira Awaas Yojana to construct pucca houses.
Sources said two beneficiaries, namely Ashalata Sahu, the wife of Kailash Sahu of Bherupada village (work order No: 459/2013-14) and Jhari Sahu, the wife of Shankar Sahu (work order No: 837/2013-14) were given cheques of Rs 15,000 each under this yojana.
The beneficiaries were told that the work orders will be cancelled if they do not finish construction within six months. But they were given the remaining amount of Rs 60,000 each on June 1, 2019 by unscrupulous block officials even though they had not taken up construction of their houses.
The block authorities had not approved bills in the case of beneficiaries whose houses were half completed. Bit in the above mentioned cases payments were made to the beneficiaries by block authorities even though there were no sign of houses.
Apparently, it seems that huge amounts were paid as bribes. A Vigilance inquiry can bring out the truth.
A villager named Chaini Sahu of Bherupada did not get a pucca house under any of the Awaas Yojanas as he could not bribe block and panchayat officials.
Reacting to this, Bajrakote Sarpanch Banita Baliarsingh said, “There are eight more cases of fraud in this village where bills have been passed without any trace of houses at all. It merits an investigation.”
The Junior Engineer of Ranpur block, Manoj Kumar Behera said, “Payments have been made to beneficiaries who have constructed houses.”
The views of Ranpur Block Development Officer Rashmirekha Das could not be obtained as she did not accept the phone call.
Giving his views, Nayagarh Collector N Thirumala Naik said, “If any applicant has accepted payments without actually constructing pucca houses action will be taken.”
Grants for 1,300 Awas Yojana houses lapse in Nuagaon
Nuagaon: The poor who live in thatched houses dream of getting a pucca house under the government’s Awas Yojana. But lapses in implementing the scheme are creating doubts in public minds.
While bona fide applicants are not getting work orders for constructing pucca houses as per the scheme, grants for building around 1,300 pucca houses under the Awaas Yojana are being returned to the government.
Despite the state government’s assurance to provide pucca houses to the poor, many deserving applicants in the Nuagaon block of Nayagarh district are in despair as they have been struck off from the list of beneficiaries.
Sources said nearly 2,829 pucca houses under the Awaas Yojana were sanctioned for applicants in the 22 panchayats of Nuagaon block based on a survey conducted in 2011.
The hopes of many bonafide applicants of getting a house has disappeared as grants for around 1,300 pucca houses are about to returned.
Of the 2,829 pucca houses sanctioned, 922 were reserved for Harijans, 650 for tribals and 1,257 for the general category. However, there are more backward as well as tribal homeless people in Nuagaon block compared to general category applicants.
Reacting to this, Nuagaon Block Development Officer S Subhra Patel said, “It is difficult to include all the backward and tribal applicants as they have not been shown homeless in the 2011 survey report. However, to solve the problem of reserved quota under different categories, the panchayat-level quotas of pucca houses allotted for Nuagaon block can be interchanged.”
Now to the agony of many applicants, the sanctioned grants will go back to the government as the required number of applicants is not available as per the 2011 survey report.