April 29, 2014
Govt permission sought to initiate action against Goa Parivartan Manch
State received 23 crores from Centre under MGNREGA from 2008 to 2014
Goa govt feels Union Rural Development Ministry may delay funds to Goa
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Advocate Yatish Naik still hopes he will have the last laugh. But the whistle blower of the Goa Parivartan Manch is currently facing some pretty tough chin music from an angry government faced with the prospect of stricture and even a blockage of funds from the Union Rural Development Department, for his ‘exposing’ a massive scam in the largest work allocation employment scheme of the government.
The District Rural Development Agency has sought government permission to initiate action against the Goa Parivartan Manch for what it called “misleading” information on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme beneficiaries, made public at a press conference, which has strained relations between the BJP-led government and the Union Ministry.
The ministry had recently praised the State Rural Development Ministry for excellent work in implementation of the scheme.
Speaking to Herald, DRDA Project Director V N Shetye said that misleading information made available to the media is nothing but a personal publicity stunt that is likely to make the State suffer in terms of financial allocations.
“I got several calls from the Central Ministry office seeking clarifications on the media reports, which was entirely based on the information produced by the NGO. I had lot of explaining to do,” he said.
“But this wrong information will ultimately make the State suffer. The Union Rural Development Ministry will now think twice before releasing funds under the scheme. There is a possibility that they might refuse or delay funds by two to three months, thus affecting the functioning,” Shetye said.
The Union Ministry since the implementation of the scheme in 2008 till March 2014 has released nearly Rs 23 crores under the scheme.
The director informed that the Joint Secretary, Government of India, Aparajita Sarangi, through a communication to State on April 3 had congratulated the State government for effective implementation of MGNREGA scheme.
“All work records were found to be maintained properly and were in order. A strong quality control framework was also found at the grass root level,” the letter written by Sarangi to State secretary Mathew Samuel reads.
The letter was issued following State level convergence workshop held on February 22 that was attended by Union Ministry officials.
“We were congratulated and told that Goa can be a model to all other states in implementing the scheme,” Shetye said. According to the state record, a total of 32,000 job cards have been issued to the beneficiaries under the scheme since 2008.
Goa Parivartan Manch had circulated several documents to the press on Saturday wherein they claimed that Bollywood celebrities like Amitabh Bachahan, Aamir Khan, Paresh Rawal and cricketers such as Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Ricky Ponting were beneficiaries under the MGNREGA scheme. The name of state chief minister Manohar Parrikar was also in the list of beneficiaries.
These names were shown as residing in the Chimbel. However, the DRDA had refuted any sort of scam in the matter, clarifying that the names of these celebrities were registered during the training process for the officials connected with the implementation of this scheme, and subsequently these names were deleted.
http://www.heraldgoa.in/News/Local%20News/lsquo-Personal-publicity-stunt-rsquo-says-govt-whistleblower-to-face-angry-state-music/88137.html
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