Rasulpur: Even as the government has laid stress on proper execution of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) during the COVID-induced lockdown, irregularities have scuttled its purpose in Rasulpur block of Jajpur district, a report said.
People of Atlapur in this block alleged that owing to an unholy nexus between officials and contractors, official guidelines were thrown to the winds in the execution of a project under MGNREGS.
“While job card holders in the locality have been sitting pretty, the contractor engaged cheap workers from outside,” they pointed out.
It was learnt that Rs 2 lakh was allocated for restoration of an embankment in Atlapur panchayat. Surprisingly, the estimated cost mentioned in the information plaque is Rs 5 lakh. The scheme of the project was named as ‘Brahmani river embankment road’.
Officially, it was stated that the work was started February 13, 2020 and completed June 5, 2020. The bill of the project has been cleared. However, there is no mention about use of tractors in the documents submitted for clearance of bill.
The villagers also alleged that the contractor has used sand instead of soil in the project.
Moreover, outside workers were engaged in sand transport while local workers were sitting idle, the villagers said, demanding a probe into the illegalities.
When asked about the illegalities, Anil Kumar Biswal, engineer of the department concerned, said Rs 5 lakh was wrongly mentioned as cost of the project.
However, he could not reply about the irregularities in the work.
In other panchayats, fake muster rolls are prepared in MGNREGS projects, it was alleged.
PNN