State Cong gathers visual ‘evidence’ of anomalies in schemes

We are just given half the amount of ration due to us. We have complained many times but officials have not responded. Sometimes,the PDS shop owner keeps our ration cards with him and does not give us any supply.

Mohd Ismail,a resident of Gharwaria village in Lakhimpur Kheri.

These are some of the statements which have been videorecorded by the NREGA task force of the UP Congress Committee in Lakhimpur as part of the social audit conducted by the team for various schemes funded by the Central government. The state Congress Committee has decided to use its NREGA task force for finding out anomalies in the implementation of different development schemes funded by the Central government across the state — Old Age pension,Janani Suraksha Yojana,Indira Awas,MNREGA.

While the UPCC plans to conduct such social auditing with videography across the state,the first such CD with the statements of beneficiaries highlighting the anomalies in various schemes in Lakhimpur district was released on Friday at the state headquarters.

Subodh Srivastava,Chief Spokesperson of UPCC,said: “The idea is to highlight the manner in which the Central funds meant for poor beneficiaries in the state are being misused for the benefit of politically influential people”

The modalities of this exercise includes selection of a district at a time,video record the statements of the beneficiaries alleging anomalies at the village level,take an affidavit from them and then submit the same to the officers concerned. “We have recorded the statements of locals as evidence and have also taken around 1,000 affidavits from them,” said Srivastava. “We will submit the report to the Prime Minister as well as the Governor of the state. We will soon begin with other districts as well,” he added.

The NREGA task force of the party is already functional in each district of the state and has been highlighting anomalies in the implementation of NREGA. But from now on,the task force will be used for social auditing of other schemes as well.