Chandigarh
Tribune: Bathinda: Saturday, 17 January 2015.
Workers
engaged under the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(MGNREGA) in Bathinda have not been paid their dues for the last several
months.
Even as the authorities have been citing delay
in allotment of grants from the Centre, the district administration has
embarked upon grandiose spending to purchase expensive furniture for the Deputy
Commissioner’s office, and that too out of the MGNREGA contingency funds.
Deputy
Commissioner (DC) Basant Garg bought a chair, probably one among the most
expensive in the country, worth Rs 50,538 in August last, information procured
under the RTI Act has shown. Most of the deputy commissioners, who are district
programme coordinator for MGNREGA, in Punjab use chairs valued less than Rs
12,000 in their offices.
Even the cost
of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s chair is below Rs 30,000.
Though short
of funds, the Bathinda zila parishad gave a go-ahead to buy the chair following
a demand from Garg. The chair, of ‘Halo Very High Back’ category, was bought
from Godrej’s furniture wing.
Those dealing
with Godrej say the chair, having a leather cushion, is specially designed for
corporate bigwigs. The previous chair for the Bathinda DC office had cost Rs
8,000.
Garg
maintained there was nothing wrong in using MGNREGA contingency funds to buy a
chair. “The chair is branded one and, thus, entails high cost.... The payment
to workers could not be made due to non-release of central grants.”
This
spendthrift act notwithstanding, there is an outstanding amount of Rs 26.51
lakh against MGNREGA wages in Bathinda district. The workers have staged
protests several times, but to no avail.
C Siban,
Director, Rural Development and Panchayats Department, said 6 per cent of the
MGNREGA funds were in contingency category, which could be used to buy
furniture for MGNREGA office. He said there was a general policy to spend less
on furniture.
Sources said
besides this “expensive” chair, there was a proposal to purchase high-cost
generators from MGNREGA funds, which was rejected. Lachhman Singh Sevewala,
Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union general secretary, said it was “bizarre behaviour” to
buy such an expensive chair when poor workers were protesting on roads for
their legitimate dues.
“We had heard
about the hi-tech chair, but it’s only today we came to know its high cost,”
said Jagmohan Kaushal, Nagrik Chetna Manch office-bearer.
The RTI
information showed that the Bathinda DC’s counterpart in Moga was using a chair
worth a mere Rs 1,780 whereas Rs 3,500 was spent in May 2010 to buy a chair
each for the Ludhiana and Mohali DCs.
In Bathinda’s
neighbourhood, Rs 11,800 was spent on a chair for the Mansa DC on March 23,
2011. On August 12, 2011, a chair for Amritsar DC cost Rs 4,372. The Barnala
DC’s chair is worth Rs 5,500, Tarn Taran DC Rs 7,500, Fazilka DC Rs 9,500,
Kapurthala DC Rs 4,500 and the Nawanshahr DC Rs 6,700.
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