BHUBANESWAR : The 23 non-existent farm ponds which the Vigilance is investigating in Rayagada district could just be the tip of the iceberg as the anti-corruption agency is now looking at over 100 such mini waterbodies that the Watershed officials allegedly dug up on ‘pen and paper’ and embezzled huge amount of government funds.
The scam over excavation of farm ponds under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme came to light after Vigilance arrested four officials for allegedly embezzling funds to the tune of Rs 20 lakh towards excavation of 23 farm ponds in Kashipur.
The government had decided to excavate farm ponds to recharge groundwater level in Rayagada. During 2023-2024, Watershed development wing undertook the work for 124 farm ponds in Kashipur block. Dimension of each pond was set at 20 metre (length), 15 metre (width) and 3 metre (depth). Excavation cost of each waterbody was estimated at Rs 2 lakh.
The officials not only made up these ponds on official files, they fabricated beneficiaries too. In fact, one set of beneficiaries was the people on whose land the farm ponds were proposed. The other was, job card holders under MGNREGA.
When Vigilance contacted owners of the land on which these 23 ponds were planned, it found that many of them had no knowledge of the scheme at all. “Out of the 23 ponds under verification, 16 landowners were not even aware that officials had misappropriated government money by claiming farm ponds were excavated on their land. They had neither filed an application nor submitted documents for excavation of ponds on their land,” SP, Vigilance of Koraput, Rabindra Kumar Panda said.
In the rest seven cases, sources said, the officials appeared to have created ghost landowners. The anti-corruption agency suspects the scam is possibly much bigger and the officials may have swindled a huge amount of money by claiming to have excavated about 100 farm ponds by producing fraudulent labour bills.
The four even abused the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS), originally created to protect labourers from frauds and pilferages. “The accused officials produced fake bills and the money was transferred to MGNREGA job cardholders. They later diverted the money to their own bank accounts,” said the Vigilance SP.
In some instances, they even tricked the job cardholders by transferring the money deposited in their accounts through AePS using biometric verification, he added.
Since MGNREGA job cardholders are mostly tribals and reside in inaccessible locations, the officials used their names and bank accounts without informing them. They lured them on the promise of providing financial assistance under government schemes. The tribals were given a small part, while the tainted officials allegedly made away with the lion’s share.
Vigilance is also investigating whether fake MGNREGA job cards were created to facilitate the fraud.