More officials will be arrested: SP

Ahmedabad: After TOI exposed the widespread corruption in MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in Banaskantha, district and police administration have swung into action by suspending and arresting prime accused in the case.

District SP Tarun Duggal said that police had arrested Chaman Raydara, sarpanch of Balundra village of Amirgadh taluka and gram rojgar sevak (GRS) Hitendrasinh Chauhan on Friday night.

Duggal said that thorough investigation was being carried into the suspected role of senior officers who monitored the MGNREGA implementation in the area when the fake job card scam took place. “Once complicity of senior officers is established, we will not spare them,” said Duggal.

District development officer Ajay Dahiya told TOI that Raydara was also issued a show cause notice on Friday. “Then talati Gajendrasinh Rathod was suspended and services of GRS were dismissed,” he said.

In Balundra village, large scale corruption in the MGNREGA scheme was exposed by Dalit rights activist and Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani along with his aides Kiran Parmar and Dinesh Rathod. Later, as TOI investigated the scam, it was revealed that fake job cards were created in the name of dead persons and even school going children to pilfer union government funds meant to give livelihood to the poorest of the poor.

These unprecedented stories of corruption were reported by TOI in a series of articles from September 2.

These included cases in Salempura village in Palanpura taluka, where job cards were created in the name of a prisoner, who was lodged in Palanpur sub jail for murder of a five-year-old girl. Also names of a government peon and a secretary in a local dairy were found on MGNREGA muster card. In Kumbhasan village of Palanpur taluka, a dummy job card was made in the name of a cop and his parents.

Sources in police said that they had also begun inquiry into the corruption cases of Salempura and Kumbhasan where an FIR might be lodged soon.

“In Salempura and Kumbhsan villages, a taluka development officer was asked to become a complainant and file an FIR against erring Sarpanches and government officers,” said a police officer.

The scam was first flagged by Dalit activist and independent MLA from Vadgam Jignesh Mevani and his outfit Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch members — Hasmukh Rathod and Kiran Parmar — who exposed gross irregularities in the MGNREGA where dummy job cards were created to get undue financial benefits.

Mevani told TOI: “Responsibility of the superiors including district rural development agency (DRDA) head and taluka development officer (TDO) must be fixed. No payments could be made without approval of TDO and DRDA head. They have to be privy to all the documents. The evidence is there for all to see. Any delay in arresting superior officers would only be seen as an attempt to thwart the investigation.”