Members rue resistance from political leaders, corrupt practices by govt officials, mismanagement of funds as the reason behind lack of implementation of schemes
From page 01 LUDHIANA: The Guardians of Governance (GoGs) project members released a six-month report card of their assessment of the administrative affairs during a press briefing held here on Thursday.
The report has picked gaping holes in the claims made by the district administration in the implementation of the government schemes.
The report mentions that under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme, it was observed that the labour force was used for de-weeding the village ponds and lakhs of money was wasted which could have been used for other developmental works.
“We found mismanagement of funds, wages which was being siphoned off to aides of sarpanches. Involvement of few banks in aiding this fraud has also been revealed,” said Colonel (retired) BS Bhangu, second in command of the project in the district.
Around seven GoGs posted at different levels in the district released this report which raises serious questions over the delivery of services to the ordinary people.As per the report, despite the district being declared open defecation free, people in Braich village defecate in the open.
The report also mentioned that most of the Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants in the villages lack maintenance as the filters in these plants have been rarely changed. “High-stage tanks have been constructed in almost all the villages but the equipment for chlorination is lying defunct,” said Bhangu.
‘ GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS INVOLVED’ Acknowledging the failure to implement the government schemes at micro-level, the project members accused government officials at lower- level of corruption.
“At village and block level, the officials in connivance the village representatives are indulging into corrupt practices.As of now, we have not specifically identified those individuals in our report,” said one of the members pleading anonymity.
“We have been facing resistance from political leaders of the ruling party who have also approached the chief minister in this regard,” said the member.
“The local MLAs think of us as their rivals. We do face resistance when we strike out the fake names from the list of beneficiaries for welfare schemes,” said another member.
‘EMOLUMENTS FOR SARPANCHES’ Sarpanches across the state have not been getting their monthly honorarium of ₹1,200 for the past four years. However, the state government will be soon releasing the emoluments for the sarpanches, said Lt. Col. (retired) Harbant Singh Kahlon, in-charge of GoG in Ludhiana. We will keep on informing the government of all the updates from the district, he said.