Soren: Did he?

Ranchi, Nov. 2: For members of Parliament from Jharkhand, in the case of at least one of them, charity does begin at home.

The Comptroller and Auditor-General has revealed in its report how the MP violated the rules for use of public funds designed to finance development work. The MP recommended the case of a non-existent research institute of which he himself happened to be the chairman.

The report does not name the MP, but the institute it mentions is chaired by Shibu Soren, the Union coal minister.

There is still no sign of the Birsa Research Institute for Medical and Bio-medical Studies at Bokaro, for which Soren released over Rs 1.5 crore between 2001 and 2003 out of the MP’s local area development fund.

A signboard of a medical college does exist at Sector VI, where the Bokaro Steel management handed over to the minister an existing school that it was no longer interested in running. Like the non-existent research institute, however, the school, too, does not exist any longer.

Today, however, an ambulance without a registration number was parked on the campus and a nurse sat in a room with some medicines. There was no sign of a patient though, while an attendant said the “medical college” might start functioning from next year.

Soren got as much as Rs 1.23 crore released to the institute between March and July 2001. He was then a Rajya Sabha member.

Two years later, in December 2003, he once again got Rs 36.56 lakh released to the institute for an ambulance equipped with medical facilities. There is no information yet of how much more money was sanctioned after 2004 when Soren won a seat in the Lok Sabha and became a minister.

The institute is said to be under the Council for Agriculture, Industrialisation and Rural Employment, which has Soren as the chairman of the managing committee.

The report mentions that the council functions from the official residence of the MP.

The report points out two gross violations. Under the guidelines, the MP’s local area development fund cannot be released to any society with which the recommending MP is associated. Also, no single society or organisation can be given more than Rs 25 lakh.

The irregularity appears to be the tip of the iceberg as CAG teams, which covered just six of the 22 districts of Jharkhand, found that though Rs 153.54 crore was available under the fund for these districts between 2001 and 2005, only Rs 74.48 crore was spent.

Worse, 93 per cent of it, or Rs 69.41 crore, was used without any utilisation certificate.

Test checks revealed that basic records like measurement books, vouchers, etc. were not maintained. In some cases measurements were recorded even before engaging labour in the projects.

A road in Narayanpur (Bokaro) was said to have been completed and the measurement taken on May 4, 2004, but, curiously, labour was engaged to do the work from May 24, 20 days after the road had allegedly been completed.