Cut-outs of Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik being put up at Koelnagar on Tuesday. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 2: For the second time, the Orissa cabinet today failed to resolve the matter of issuing caste certificates.

Besides tehsildars, MLAs have been empowered to issue caste certificates to those belonging to scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other backward classes. While the government officials have been hauled up for issuing caste certificates to the wrong people, legislators have not been held accountable for the same lapse.

There have been allegations that several MLAs issued certificates to people without verifying facts. A number of fake certificates have been detected in the state. Even a minister — the state women and child development minister Anjali Behera — was caught in a controversy for issuing certificates to the wrong people.

To avoid a recurrence of such cases, the state government had constituted a group of ministers headed by health minister Prasanna Acharya. The panel had suggested that both the MLAs and tehsildars be made accountable and liable for punishment.

However, the MLAs think that the government must set in place an adequate mechanism so that they can verify the genuineness of an applicant.

The cabinet today met and decided to defer the matter till the next meeting, apparently to avoid an uproar in the House.

Briefing media about the deliberations of the state cabinet, Orissa chief secretary Bijay Patnaik said: “The cabinet has deferred the issue for the next meeting.”

The matter of issuing caste certificates has escalated into a major controversy across the state. The Paschima Odisha Adivasi Mahasangha, an association of tribal organisations of western Orissa, has been agitating over the issue. It had pointed out that “fake tribals” were enjoying reservation benefits such as government jobs.

The Mahasangh had said that it had identified at least 355 “fake tribals” in Balangir district. The organisation had informed the government that that there were 141 such impostors in Sonepur district, 204 in Bargarh, 154 in Boudh, 896 in Kandhamal, 24 in Sambalpur, 12 in Sundargarh, 14 in Nuapada, 68 in Kalahandi, five in Deogarh and 18 in Nabarangur district.

Out of the list of 355 submitted to the government in Balangir district, caste certificates of only 36 have been cancelled so far. Eight employees have been dismissed and three employees have been placed under suspension for having fake certificates. Nine have also been arrested.

To identify the fake certificates, the state government has constituted a high-level scrutiny committee and a vigilance cell to inquire into the matter. “After the constitution of the committees, the tehesildars are not inquiring into the matter properly,” said Mahasangh secretary Niranjan Bishi.

The Orissa cabinet also gave its nod to the proposal of transferring the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme from the women and child development department to the school and mass education department for better management in the wake of the dal scam.