BHOPAL: A development which is bound to render rude jolt to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) has been reported from Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh. Five months ago around 150 residents of Jamunia and Hanspura village (forming part of Jamunia gram panchayat) applied to the gram panchayat for houses under the PMAY, which envisages houses for every poor family in the country by 2022. Three days back, the same villagers, who had applied for the PMAY houses were shocked to find 61 of those 150 files lying in the waste near an open nullah.
Enraged over the development, the residents of both Jamunia and Hanspura villages went to the district collector's office in Mandsaur and raised the matter, demanding strict action in the matter against the village sarpanch, panchayat secretary and other staff of the Jamunia gram panchayat.
"Five months back, we applied for the PMAY houses to the panchayat mantri and secretary. The files containing the duly filled applications with other requisite documents were submitted to the Jamunia gram panchayat staff. Since then whenever we queried about the progress of our cases, the panchayat mantri and secretary kept on telling us that the files have been sent to the Janpad Panchayat, where they are under processing," alleged Bhanwar Singh, one of the residents who had applied for a house.
Toofan Singh, a resident of Hanspura village (also part of Jamunia gram panchayat) added, "You can come to our village and see that we still live in makeshift houses. PM Modi's PMAY scheme brought in our lives the hope of one day living in proper houses, but the staff of Jamunia gram panchayat has hoodwinked us and instead of sending our files ahead for processing, they threw them near the nullah.
"Strict action should be taken against them, as their act is ultimately damaging the image of our PM, who is committed to the welfare of poor people. We've found 61 files thrown outside, but want to know what happened to around 90 more files."
The Jamunia village sarpanch Prakash Solanki, when contacted in the matter by The New Indian Express on Thursday said, "though I was out of town when this episode happened, I have found out from the panchayat staff that these files were kept in the open to be dried up as they had become wet after coming in contact with moisture during recent rains. Now the verification survey needs to be conducted through use of a mobile app on the ground to check whether the applicants are really eligible for houses under the scheme or not, there files were being dried up before distribution to respective applicants ahead of the verification survey," said Solanki.
The Mandsaur deputy collector Roshni Patidar, confirmed that villagers had recently submitted a memorandum in the matter and added that a proper probe would be conducted to ascertain the truth in the entire matter.