Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 7: While lauding the action of Chief Minister for sacking, Haq Khan as Rural Development Minister, NPP chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh today sought to know the reasons for shielding the top corrupt officers of the department who had been booked by the Vigilance in fraud cases with FIRs registered against them.
The seven senior officers including two directors, three ACDs and one DPO who were accused of multi- crore scam had been denied bail by the Anti- corruption Court but were still enjoying immunity from arrest, Harsh Dev Singh said.
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Not only that they continued to enjoy plum postings with some of them having been awarded with more suitable postings by the erstwhile RDD Minister before his ouster. Does the Govt not owe an explanation to the people for the immunity given to the corrupt by it in the State? Singh said .
Addressing a press conference in Jammu today, Harsh Dev said that his experiences after his tours of the various rural areas had shown that the funds under the MG-NREGA scheme were being siphoned off by unscrupulous officials in connivance with certain vested interests. He said that the flagrant violation of GoI stipulated norms in identification and execution of works, large scale variations in labour-material ratio, purchase scams, extremely poor quality works, payments to fake job card holders, fictitious bills, inflated billing for materials used, withdrawal of payments for non-existent works, diversion of funds, non provision of employment to genuine job card holders etc were the general complaints of the public in almost all the rural areas.
He said that the rural folk almost unanimously complained everywhere that no notice was taken by the authorities concerned regarding the omissions and commissions in MG-NREGA, IWMP, CD and Panchayats besides other funds placed at the disposal of RDD.
Singh regretted that even the complaints filed by him with helmsmen regarding the blatant violations and other irregularities in MG-NREGA in district Udha-mpur particularly the blocks of Ramnagar, Majalta, Khoon, Basantgarh, Ghordi, Kulwa-nta and Chanunta on the basis of feedback received from the ground, had failed to elicit any response from concerned quarters.
Seeking immediate action against the corrupt, Singh cautioned that any further delay would invite strong public reaction with Panthers Party holding protests outside offices of various RDD officers including the Ministers concerned.
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