BHUBANESWAR: Alleging large scale misutilisation and diversion of funds, the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) on Wednesday demanded a special audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India into the District Mineral Fund (DMF) Trust.
Stating that there has been gross violation of the DMF rules, the OPCC said that the list of the development work undertaken by the State government for people living in mining affected areas should be made public.
As per the DMF rules, the funds should be spent only on development of health, education, water supply, power supply, road connectivity, irrigation, sanitation, afforestation and environmental improvement in mining affected villages and panchayats.
Raising the issue at a media conference, OPCC spokesperson Prashant Satpathy alleged besides misutilisation, low expenditure of DMF funds has affected development in mining-hit areas.
He claimed that while Rs 6,976.98 crore has been sanctioned for Sundargarh district since 2015-16 when the DMF Trust was created, only Rs 1,004.51 crore was released and Rs 692.25 crore utilised.
For Keonjhar district, Rs 3,614.4 crore was sanctioned while Rs 103.37 crore has been released. Only Rs 1 lakh has been utilised.
Satpathy claimed that funds are being diverted for several urban-centric works. Alleging that budgetary fund allocation for different departments are not utilised fully, he alleged that off-budget funds like DMF are misutilised heavily.