Co-op muck exposed through RTI by NYKS coordinator

Paul John  TNN

Ahwa (Dang district): It’s one of those rare instances in government service where an officer shows grit, remains discrete and diligently exposes the muck in public spending. For years together many were not aware as to how lakhs of taxpayers’ money entrusted with Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), a central government body, whose function is to strengthen youth co-operatives across the country was slowly falling into the hands corrupt co-operatives in many pockets in Gujarat.

It took an RTI of district youth co-ordinator of NYKS, SS Paul, to blow the whistle on such fake co-operatives. These co-operatives would

forge documents, vouchers, bank accounts, register NGOs with fake credentials and then siphon off public funds under the garb of developmental works like water shed development, communication and self development events. For this these co-operatives even filed fake progress reports.

Paul’s struggle started in 2003 when he noticed serious financial irregularities in central and south Gujarat region regarding spending on programmes sponsored by NYKS. “The root to these irregularities

lay in district rural development

agency (DRDA) records and NYKS being a central government organisation had hard time procuring the proof. For three years I struggled amid allegations from local political parties and in DRDA that I was mentally unstable. But then I used RTI to turn the tables on them. Quite discretely through a series of applications I collected all proof from DRDA and finally prepared the case papers. I filed a police complaint as mandated and this initiated an inquiry against the defaulters,” says Paul.

For the last few months NYKS follows a stricter regime in Gujarat. Any NYKS sponsored event now requires names of participants and their signatures. Any purchase made requires genuine receipts. The credentials of co-operatives are checked by special flying squads. Impromptu phone calls are made to various NYKS offices in Gujarat to check whether officers are present on their seats. There has been a sea change in the overall functioning of the NYKS and I am happy today. The RTI I filed with DRDA helped me learn the nitty gritty of corrupt practices in Gujarat,” says Paul.