CM’s yojana for labourers but others take the pie

Times of India: Raipur: Friday, 01 August 2014.

While the Chhattisgarh government has been trying to cover up the widespread discrepancies in the list of recipients of the Rs 40 crore Mukhyamantri Silai (sewing) Machine and Cycle Sahayata Yojanas by attributing it to a computer glitch, investigations by TOI indicate that many undeserving people have taken benefit of the scheme, targeted exclusively for women labourers in unorganized sector, by fudging documents.

Wives of a singer, a shopkeeper, an electrician and a railway employee have also been beneficiaries of the government largesse, which was actually meant to help women labourers. As per government claims, over 1.08 lakh women across the state had benefited from the scheme.

As highlighted by TOI earlier this week, the list of recipients of the scheme, provided by Chhattisgarh labour department under RTI, includes many centenarian women, aged above 100 and even 200 years, the 'oldest' being 532 years. The list did not have many addresses and other details about the beneficiaries.

However, instead of ordering a detailed inquiry into the discrepancies, which certainly indicate a possible scam, the government has attempted to play it down by claiming that these errors in age and the addresses occurred while data uploading by the company.

While most of the addresses in the list are either wrong, incomplete or non-existent, TOI, with the help of RTI activists, Sanjeev Aggarwal, who had filed the RTI, tracked some of the recipients on Thursday. Though none of them can be dubbed as "labourers" by any standards, they still possessed the "hitgrahi" (beneficiary) certificate, issued by the labour department, certifying them as "labourers".

Case I - Premwati Sinha (50 yrs) w/o Dilip Sinha. Premwati's address in the list provided by the Labour department is mentioned as Kelkarpara, near Shiv Mandir. The TOI tracked her house and a chat with her son, Mukesh Sinha, revealed that his parents are both vegetable vendors and not labourers. They live in their own house, which incidentally is a three-storeyed one.

Mukesh admitted that his mother has received a sewing machine under the scheme last year. He said they had only shown their voter card to receive the machine.

Case II - Parmila Yadav, wife of Dhukalu Yadav. Parmila's address in the list is mentioned as Paras Nagar, Sajid, Gali Nos 3, Raipur. It was easy to track Parmila as her husband, Dhukalu, is a well-known Chattisgarhi singer. He has his videos on Youtube and his CDs are also available in the market.

Talking to TOI, Parmila admitted that she too had received the sewing machine, which was now being used by her daughter-in-law. She said the local councilor had helped them get the machine. She admitted that she wasn't a labourer but a homemaker.

Case III - Bharti Parmar, wife of Sanjay Parmar was tracked to her house in Fafadhi, Raipur. She told TOI that her husband ran an electronic shop in Trimurti Nagar, Timber Market, and she too assisted him. She showed TOI her beneficiary certificate (136507), issued by the labour department, and admitted that she had received a cheque of Rs 2,800 to buy the sewing machine. She also claimed that many other women like her had received benefits under the scheme, even though they weren't labourers.

Case IV - Savitri Reddy, wife of N Puroshottam Reddy was tracked by TOI to her house in Bhatapara, Sai Nagar, Fafadhi. She too admitted that she had received the sewing machine though she wasn't a labourer. Her beneficiary card showed her occupation as 'reza' (labourers who carry stone and sand). She also claimed that many women in her locality had got machines through such fictitious certificates.

Following the TOI investigations, Aggarwal said, "it seems that there is bungling in the implementation of the scheme and the benefits have not reached to those who actually deserved it". He said the government should immediately order an inquiry to reveal the truth.

Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson, Shailesh Nitin Trivedi has also demanded an inquiry into the schemes and dubbed it as a massive corruption scandal.

When contacted, secretary, labour department, Jiten Kumar, admitted that housewives were not entitled to get the benefits of the scheme. However, he claimed that besides women labourers, 52 other categories of beneficiaries also existed. He said the entire scheme was based on 'self verification' of profession by the recipients and the department went by their claims only.

"If someone has given false action, we can only take action against them", he said adding that these women could have given self certifications of being labourers.