Bhubaneswar: The powers given to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in Odisha to bolster decentralised governance seem to have backfired. Several of the erring PRIs are now found indulging in massive misappropriation of taxpayers’ money under the nose of the state government. One glaring example of a scam in disbursement of pensions has now come to the fore with the audit and investigation done by the officials of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) who connected several dots to prove how lakhs of rupees were siphoned off with the involvement of Panchayat Samiti and Gram Panchayat leaders.
The CAG in its latest finding claimed that their sample audit of selected Panchayat Samitis (PS) and Gram Panchayats (GPs) found that in 11 erring PS and in nine such GPs, cash disbursements of pensions were done against the names of 167 dead pension beneficiaries. “Audit observed that 167 beneficiaries to whom pension amounting to `2.33 lakh had been paid in cash were not alive on the dates of payment of pension. However, pension continued to be paid in their name for 1 to 22 months after their death. Thus, the amounts were suspected to have been misappropriated,” the CAG report said. The misappropriation of funds came to light when the CAG officials tried to match the details of individuals getting pensions with the details of persons who died as per the records from the local hospitals.
Details of their kin receiving ex-gratia from the government under the Harischandra Sahayata Scheme were matched to buttress their point. In Odisha the elderly, widows, differently-abled, AIDS patients and others receive pensions either from the Union government under the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) or through the state scheme of Madhu Babu Pension Yojana (MBPY).
“As per the guidelines of NSAP and provisions of MBPY Rules 2008, PS and GPs shall report every case of death of a pensioner immediately to the Block Development Officer (BDO)/ Sub-Collector concerned. Further, annual verification of pensioners shall be conducted by the competent authority to ascertain that the pensioner is alive and continues to fulfil all the conditions of eligibility. Pension shall cease to be payable following the death of the pensioner,” the CAG report said. However due to the deliberate willful defiance of the norms by the PRI officers, tax payers’ money was disbursed to ineligible persons in an illegal way.
“Irregular payments of this nature were made possible for not reporting the cases of death of the beneficiaries immediately to the BDOs/ SubCollectors by the GPs,” the CAG report. Why Odisha? The Ministry of Rural Development earlier had asked the state government multiple times, especially the Department of Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD), the nodal agency handling pension matters in the state to pay pensions through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and not through cash. However, the state government citing lack of financial inclusion had been paying cash pensions at several areas at panchayat level. Banks have better compliance for pension payments like requirement of life certificates and Aadhar-based verification when paid through bank accounts. But the cash mode of pension payment seemed to have allowed the payments to be made under the PRI institutions without much scrutiny and at the whims and fancies of the local PRI staff, giving scope for giving pensions to undeserving persons.
The CAG, however, could study only 49 out of the 317 panchayat samitis and only 268 out of the 6,798 panchayats from July 2018 to March 2019. The actual amount of misappropriation in this pension scam seems to be much higher than reported in the CAG report.
Manish Kumar, OP