Bhopal
A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to inaugurate the Rs 3,800 crore Mohanpura dam project in Rajgarh district of Madhya Pradesh, some RTI activists together with the Congress have alleged corruption to the tune of several hundred crore rupees in the mega project.
Activists led by the head of the Congress’s RTI cell claimed that based on their information, the Prime Minister’s Office lodged a complaint and sent an SMS acknowledgement of it on June 22.
Armed with the documents drawn under RTI, Congress’ Ajay Dubey and activists like Manoj Tripathi told the media that several crores have been embezzled in the irrigation project.
They claimed that as on October 2013, a total of 170 families were deemed eligible for compensation of Rs 5 lakh each but it was clear that forged documents were furnished for doling out money to ineligible persons and those who were eligible were excluded from the process.
“When we sought information on compensation disbursement in submergence affected village, details of only village Gopalpura were offered by the department,” said Dubey, stating that the information was sufficient to vindicate that large scale irregularities took place in distribution of compensation.
It also was sufficient to prove that corruption in compensation distribution in around two dozen villages, he added. He alleged that data of several beneficiaries was later deleted from the Samagra Portal to hide the misdeeds.
In all 55 villages are going to be submerged by the project. Apart from irrigating around 8 lakh hectares of land in the area, drinking water will also be supplied to Rajgarh and surrounding areas.
On Thursday, some villagers tied black flags on tree tops and also waved black flags, saying that they had not received compensation. They said they would also wave black flags during the Prime Minister’s visit.
Dubey and the other activists further claimed that the former Rajgarh collector had detected a fraud of Rs 30 crore in the project and informed the principal secretary of the Water Resources Department, but no action has been taken on his complaint till date. They added that total financial anomalies could amount to much more than the figure touted by the officer.
Detailing the kind of anomalies detected, an activist said, “In one case, an officer had to prove a boy an adult so the documents were forged but they forgot to take into account that in the process, the age gap between the mother and the boy was reduced to 14 years which seems quite bizarre.”
“In several ration cards, the details of the family members were forged and for doing so, additional names were added in the list of family members in fraudulent manner which the documents drawn under RTI reveal,” said another.
In some instances, compensation was distributed on the name of girls who have settled elsewhere after marriage but they were fraudulently shown as widows and divorcees, they alleged.
Dubey, who is the head of Congress RTI Cell, demanded that a thorough probe should be ordered into the scam and after verification of original documents of people in submergence affected villages, cases should be lodged against the guilty.
“We are not against the project but those guilty of embezzling public money should be punished and we expect that the PM would make an announcement in this regard on Saturday during the inauguration of the project,” Dubey claimed.
However, additional chief secretary of the Water Resources Department, Radheshaym Julaniya, dismissed the complaints.
“Mr Dubey has been sentenced for 3 months imprisonment in a criminal defamation case filed by me. He is on bail. That’s his credibility. On the letter of Collector Mr Tarun Pithode, resurvey of submergence was done. No discrepancy was found. All works have been done with utmost care, transparency and openness. The complaint is baseless and false (sic),” Julaniya replied to an e-mail, said allegations.
