WHEN 55-year-old Shyam Sunderi Devi of Pakra Bazar village went to get her bank passbook updated about a fortnight ago, she found that money had been deposited in her account as NREGS wage and had also been withdrawn. The reality: she had never worked at a NREGS site, nor withdrawn the money.

Thereafter, her son Dilip Gupta went to the Bank of India branch at Sehdupur. He was told that they would conduct an inquiry. Gupta next went to gram pradhan Raj Kumari to find out how NREGS money had been deposited in his mother’s account.

Interestingly, Raj Kumari’s husband Ram Khilawan, who virtually runs the panchayat on his wife’s behalf, handed him a job card for which his mother had never applied.

“Around Rs 10,000 was deposited in the account as ‘NREGS karya bhugtan’, of which Rs 6,000 had been withdrawn — all without our knowledge,” said Gupta, who lodged a complaint with the Chief

Development Officer Kaushal Raj Sharma.

As an official inquiry is underway, many cases of gross irregularities have come to light. Bank accounts were opened in the name of villagers and operated without their knowledge or consent.

According to villagers, Ram Khilawan had approached them and told them that he had got the accounts opened and would give them some money.

“There are complaints indicating that the gram pradhan has been using fraudulent methods to siphon the NREGS funds.  We are verifying all the cases. We have collected the photocopies of all job cards and muster rolls,” said Sharma.

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