MGNREGA records in Bengal show the dead as employed, Central money looted

NEW DELHI: At least 1,500 “fake” jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Scheme have been issued allegedly by local authorities in West Bengal’s Kalyani Assembly constituency in Nadia district, through which at least Rs 5 crore have been siphoned off between 2019 and 2020.
This has been alleged by a local resident and professor of Rabindra Bharti University, Narayan Haldar, who did extensive research and then filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court on this last year in December. Following this, a bench of Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj said, “We are of the opinion that the allegation which is made by the petitioner requires factual inquiry which can more appropriately be done by the respondent no. 4 (Nadia district administration). Let this exercise be completed within a period of three months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.”
The Sunday Guardian reached out to the District Magistrate of Nadia, Shashank Sethi, to ask whether he initiated an inquiry into the matter as asked by the Calcutta High Court. After carefully listening to the query from this correspondent, Sethi said, “I am busy right now, I cannot talk.”
Haldar, while speaking to The Sunday Guardian, said that while conducting his investigation, which he started during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, 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 showed 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 on 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.
The Sunday Guardian has verified the death certificates of the above individuals.
“There are hundreds 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. I have been able to gather evidence only for my locality, when this is happening in every panchayat in Bengal,” Haldar said.
The MGNREGA, launched in 2006, was envisioned to provide employment to the rural people. The scheme guarantees 100 days of employment to all individuals in rural India. These works could 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.
However, Haldar said that during his investigation, he found that at least 300 people who have not sent any applications to the panchayat for work under MGNREGA have been shown to be working under the scheme and money is being credited to bank accounts created in their name.
“We have come across several cases where non-eligible beneficiaries, who have never worked under the MGNREGA scheme, but are getting money under the MGNREGA scheme in their bank accounts. For example, we have found that Khagen Bairaghi is a job card holder, but under his job card number, Ram Bairaghi, who has no relationship with Khagen has been added, and money is being credited into Ram Bairaghi’s account, showing that Ram is a relative of Khagen,” Haldar told this correspondent.
According to the documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian, the state government has been provided with multiple other such similar cases where allegedly “fake” jobs cards have been created and money is being sent into bank accounts. For example, Anil Sarkar, who has a job card number, WB-01-001-007-00*/0** said that Mina Sarkar, who he has no relations with, has been added to his job card and Rs 17,632 has been credited into a State Bank of India Bank account number 3501306**55 that belongs to Mina Sarkar.
Haldar, however, claimed that most of the bank accounts for transferring of money through “fake job cards” were opened with the Bangiya Grameen Bank. Documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian also showed that the majority of the accounts where money was credited for “fake” job cards and dead persons’ job cards were opened with this particular bank.
Haldar also pointed out that job cards under the MGNREGA scheme were also opened in the names of individuals who were government servants. For example, Babun Haldar, who is an employee with the West Bengal police, has an MGNREGA job card with the number WB-01-001-009-01*/0*3 opened in his name, allegedly without his knowledge. Raj Kumar Biswas, who is also an employee with the West Bengal police, has a job card with number WB-01-001-009-01*/3*8 opened in his name without his knowledge.
The MGNREGA does not entitle a government employee or any regular employee of any organisation to register themselves as a worker under this scheme, as this scheme was implemented to provide employment to the rural people who do not have any work.
Tarunjyoti Tewari, senior advocate with the Calcutta High Court, who represented Narayan Haldar in the case, told The Sunday Guardian that this is just a small example. “A massive scam under the MGNREGA scheme has happened in Bengal. Thousands of crores of Central government’s money meant for the poor have been looted by the powerful in Bengal. We have seen that while fake cards are being created and money being transferred to the accounts of those people, genuine people who have worked are not getting their money. In the coming days, we will come up with more such cases from every corner of Bengal.”