Audit finds rules bent, money diverted in Bengal’s housing plan for rural poor

The latest audit report of Panchayati Raj institutions placed in the Assembly is based on a nine-month performance audit of all 20 districts of the state by 50 teams from the AG’s office. It has alleged a sweeping range of irregularities: from allotment of IAY houses to non-BPL families, absence of any action plan for allotment and distributing ownership titles to only men when the scheme mandates that it be given to women or couples. About 70% of the 3354 Gram Panchayats in the state are controlled by the CPM.

When contacted, Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Surjya Kant Mishra said: “The report will be discussed by the Public Accounts Committee and only then can we initiate action.” Prinicipal Secretary M N Roy said: “I don’t believe that there are large-scale irregularities. I have asked for a detailed report.”

The audit covered all Zilla Parishads (the upper-most tier of the PRI), Panchayat Samitis (middle tier) and Gram Panchayats (lowest tier) for the years 2004-05. The Centre funds 75 per cent of the cost and the state the rest. Consider its key findings:

* Rs 37.67 crore was spent on building pucca dwelling units and upgrading huts in as many as 1,573 Gram Panchayats where not a single beneficiary was from a BPL family. This despite clear guidelines that beneficiaries be chosen from the BPL list prepared on the basis of priority criteria, such as SC/ST, victims of atrocities, SC/ST households headed by widows and unmarried women and SC/ST households affected by natural calamities like riots, physically and mentally challenged persons.

* It was mandatory under the scheme that each Gram Panchayat independently prepare and approve an Annual Action Plan ( AAP) before the beginning of the financial year. Almost 800 Gram Panchayats neither prepared nor approved any such plan. Instead, these panchayats spent a total of Rs 22.2 crore in selecting beneficiaries outside the AAP.

* In 1,328 Gram Panchayats, 68,245 sanitary latrines and in 1,592 panchayats, 78,766 smokeless chullahs — both integral components of the scheme — were not constructed although the full amount of Rs 259.54 crore was given to beneficiaries in two instalments. All pay orders were signed by pradhans.

* The scheme envisaged that ownership of huts constructed or upgraded under the scheme be conferred on the wife or alternatively on both the wife and the husband as a couple. But in 67,929 cases in 2,762 gram panchayats, ownership of huts — built at a cost of Rs 105.21 crore — was conferred solely on the male member of the family.

* Financial assistance was given without valid land title or document, also mandatory under the scheme. There were 23,366 cases in which a total sum of Rs 36.38 crore was disbursed to beneficiaries who had no records of ownership of the land on which their huts were constructed.