Dead men tell a tale of job scam

Visakhapatnam
Sept. 1: The dead do not disappear. They return and work amongst us and even draw wages. This is something that will be vouched for by corrupt officials of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Sunkara Appa Rao of Reddipalle panchayat and Kothana Ramu of Koyyapeta died long ago but are still being paid for NREGS work.

They are given company by two other dead persons, Mallu Appalanaidu and Mallu Chinappalaswamy, who are also wage-drawing workers in records. Jankala Krishna and Jankala Sanyasi are convicts in jail now. But they too are employed as per NREGS records.

These are just some instances of the massive irregularities and corruption in the much-touted NREGS scheme in Vizag district.

Rural job officials thrive on benami names

Visakhapatnam, Sept. 1: Large-scale corruption has plagued the much-touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme as even employed persons apart apart from the dead are shown to be working and drawing money as per its records.

Village resource persons show the name of Boni Suryanarayana who is working in the mandal office and Jankala Erri Naidu who is working as gangman in the railways as NREGS workers. Even a list collected from one mandal in the district has the names of dead persons and convicted prisoners and indicates embezzlement of Rs 3.5 lakh. Arguably, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Similar irregularities have come to light from various parts of the state in social audit conducted recently. The Anantapur district water management authority project director, Mr. L. Murali, disclosed that corrupt officials had drawn money after including names of employees and students in the muster rolls.

In Kurnool district, social audit officials found huge misappropriation of funds in Devanakonda mandal where lakhs of rupees were swallowed by officials. In Adilabad too, field level staff drew wages under fictitious names without doing works, tampering the muster rolls. Genuine labourers did not get wages though funds were withdrawn. Mr Ramlal, a field assistant of Balapala in Kuravi mandal of Warangal, was suspended for drawing money through accounts he created in post offices in fictitious names.

Four field assistants were also suspended in Kothur and Tallasankisa in Dornakal for misappropriating funds by creating fake post office accounts in the names of labourers. Similarly, in Chittoor district, lower rung staff had resorted to misusing the funds by registering names of dead persons. One such incident was reported from Diguvapalle village. Social audit officials were also surprised to find that some of the labourers mentioned in the muster rolls in Musalikunta village of the district did not exist at all. “We are taking steps to recover the amount from the officials. We have collected Rs 4 crore and suspended 2,407 personnel,” said the minister, Mr Vatti Vasanth Kumar.