Dead people were ‘working’ under MGNREGA and money was being credited into accounts ‘created’ in their names.
KOLKATA
The MGNREGA, launched in 2006, was envisioned to provide employment to rural people. The scheme guarantees 100 days of employment to all individuals in rural India. These works can include anything from digging ponds, building houses, roads, culverts, planting trees and building bridges, among other such work. The MGNREGA is implemented by the local panchayat, for which the individuals seeking work need to apply to the panchayat, which then considers the application and forwards it to the block development officer for allocating work.
The alleged MGNREGA scam in Bengal came to light after the Centre mandated that all job cards be linked to Aadhaar and then it was found that many people who were supposedly working and receiving wages under the scheme were already dead or that duplicate job cards had been issued in fictitious names.
Tarunjyoti Tewari, a young BJP leader and High Court lawyer says: “There are thousands of people who have died and are being shown to be working under the MGNREGA scheme. It is a huge scam that is going on in West Bengal and there is no doubt who is involved in this.” His client, professor of Rabindra Bharti University, Narayan Haldar, who did extensive research and then filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court told The Sunday Guardian, that while conducting his investigation, he found that several individuals from his locality were receiving money under the MGNREGA scheme when they had never worked.
“I began this investigation when I was approached by some people in my locality who told me that their names were being added under the MGNREGA scheme and bank accounts were being created under their name for which they did not give their consent. While investigating the matter further, I found that job cards were created for several dead persons and money was being received for work done by dead people under the MGNREGA scheme,” Haldar told this correspondent.
Documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian show that people who died in 2010, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2019 were “working” under the MGNREGA scheme and money was being credited into accounts “created” under their names.
According to the documents, Samar Kumar Dey, who died in September 2014, was shown to be working under MGNREGA in 2020. It was shown that Dey worked under the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for 11 days in 2020, where he was shown to have dug a pond in the village and Rs 2,068 was credited to a bank account that was allegedly created in his name.
In another case, Parikshit Rajbangshi, a resident of Kalyani, passed away in 2014, but according to documents accessed by this newspaper, Rajbangshi worked at the Kalyani block’s Madanpur Panchayat in 2019-2020 for 48 days and Rs 9,048 was credited to a bank account created under his name.
Similarly, Malti Roy, also a resident of Kalyani’s Madanpur Panchayat, passed away in 2016, but was shown to have worked under MGNREGA in 2019-2020 for 48 days and Rs 9,048 was credited to a bank account created under her name.