Bhubaneswar, April 14: The Centre has curtailed financial assistance of about Rs 223.95 crore under the Indira Awas Yojana because of the inability of the state government to utilise these funds within the stipulated time.
A recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report has revealed these statistics. The audit was conducted between 2007 and 2012.
The curtailed amount would have been enough to build 58,966 houses under the scheme. “Thus, 58,966 poor households were deprived of benefits under the Indira Awas Yojana,” the CAG report stated.
The Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) is a flagship rural housing scheme of the Centre that aims to provide houses to poor families in rural areas. The funding is shared between the Centre and the state government in the ratio of 75:25. Under the scheme, a rural poor family can avail assistance of Rs 75,000 to construct a dwelling unit.
State Congress president Niranjan Patnaik said: “We have been saying repeatedly that this government is not pro-poor. Thousands of crores allocated for the benefit of the economically weaker section of society under various flagship programmes have lapsed as the government has failed to utilise the money. Poor people have been badly hit because of the state government’s inefficiency to spend the Centre-allocated money.”
During a surprise check and interviews of beneficiaries in 26 panchayat samitis across nine districts, the CAG found gaps in the implementation of the scheme. The nine districts are Bhadrak, Balasore Balangir, Dhenkanal, Deogarh, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur and Mayurbhanj.
“An audit of IAY in these districts revealed inefficient management of funds by the implementing authorities. This has led to diversion and misutilisation of funds, low spending and non-submission of utilisation certificates,” stated the CAG report.
The audit team found instances in which payments had been made without houses being built in 11 panchayat samitis in Kendrapara, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur and Balasore. Of 6,390 houses covered under joint physical verification in these 11 panchayat samitis, 655 beneficiaries received Rs 1.03 crore on the basis of false certificates furnished by supervising officers.
The CAG report also stated that neither the ministers nor collectors had supervised the implementation of the IAY scheme. The targets could not be achieved even though the collectors of the nine districts were in a position to ensure convergence between the different programmes.
The district-level vigilance and monitoring committees, too, failed to monitor the scheme’s implementation. These committees were required to meet at least once every quarter to review the performance of the scheme in the districts.
However, verification of records in eight districts revealed that the committees had fallen way behind in terms of the required number of meetings to be held.
Panchayati raj minister Kalpataru Das said: “I have sought all information from the department relating to the CAG report on why the funds were not spent.”
The scheme also received a blow a couple of years ago when hundreds of houses under the IAY in Jajpur were left without roofs because of the non-availability of stone chips due to closure of 363 stone crusher units in the district on charges of causing air pollution.
In February, this year vigilance officers carried out raids at Remuna block office in Balasore following allegations of irregularities in distribution of houses under IAY. The officers had said they would verify the documents and decide their future course of action.
