MGNREGA: Centre fines four districts in West Bengal
KOLKATA: A central team that had visited West Bengal to inspect MGNREGA projects slapped the district administrations of Hooghly, East Burdwan, Malda and Darjeeling with fine for alleged anomalies.
While the Hooghly administration was served a penalty notice of Rs 2 crore, the sum in East Burdwan is over Rs 1 crore. Malda and Darjeeling were fined Rs 26 lakh and Rs 17 lakh, respectively.
“The central teams identified the projects to prove malpractices,’’ a panchayat department official said, revealing that some works were shown only on paper. “The size of ponds dug up did not match it in reality. In some cases, construction of village roads was written in the state’s report but the central team found them missing or made using poor material,’’ he said.
The state government is said to have started taking action against those involved in malpractices. “We have started recovering money from the accused panchayat functionaries,’’ a state official said.