• It was mandatory under the scheme that each Gram Panchayat independently prepare and approve an Annual Action Plan ( AAP) before the beginning of the financial year. Almost 800 Gram Panchayats neither prepared nor approved any such plan. Instead, these panchayats spent a total of Rs 22.2 crore in selecting beneficiaries outside the AAP.

• In 1,328 Gram Panchayats, 68,245 sanitary latrines and in 1,592 panchayats, 78,766 smokeless chullahs — both integral components of the scheme — were not constructed although the full amount of Rs 259.54 crore was given to beneficiaries in two instalments. All pay orders were signed by pradhans.

• The scheme envisaged that ownership of huts constructed or upgraded under the scheme be conferred on the wife or alternatively on both the wife and the husband as a couple. But in 67,929 cases in 2,762 gram panchayats, ownership of huts — built at a cost of Rs 105.21 crore — was conferred solely on the male member of the family.

• Financial assistance was given without valid land title or document, also mandatory under the scheme. There were 23,366 cases in which a total sum of Rs 36.38 crore was disbursed to beneficiaries who had no records of ownership of the land on which their huts were constructed.

All the 18 Zilla Parishads (the district councils) were been found to have indulged in this “malpractice” without proper verification. Of the 18, two are ruled by the Congress and the rest by the CPM.