Tirupur: The district administration has suspended former Nanjiyampalayam panchayat secretary in connection with a construction of tank under MGNREGS, which was later found not to be undertaken, and recommended a departmental inquiry against the assistant engineer who oversaw the project.
However, the district rural development agency (DRDA) officials said, “The work was started but it was not done properly. It seemed the officials did not swindle the funds, but failed to supervise the work properly.”
As per the records, the panchayat dug a new irrigation tank at Chettikalam under MGNREGS, for which it had estimated a cost of Rs 4.7 lakh and drawn part of the funds. During a special gram sabha meeting on May 18, the villagers were told about the work. But when the villagers verified, they did not find the pond. Subsequently, panchayat secretary G Nagarajan was transferred.
Amid this, the district administration sent a team of MGNREGS’ assistant project officer and an executive engineer to conduct an inquiry into the issue. They have submitted their report recently.
“Usually under MGNREGS, new ponds should be minimum of 3-5ft deep for storing water properly. But in this project, the officials had planned to dig the pond of about 1ft deep, which is a blunder. Moreover, the officials, including panchayat secretary, did not ensure that the work was done properly,” said a senior DRDA official.
“As per a social audit report released earlier, Rs 1.74 lakh out of Rs 4.7 lakh was drawn, but Rs 68,000 was not used. However, the officials could not have swindled the funds as all the funds were distributed as wages for labourers,” he said. “We also recommended not to assign any works to the work site facilitator, who had supervised the work,” he added.