Andhra Pradesh: 7 staffers sacked, 12 officials to face criminal cases in NREGS scam

GUNTUR: Cracking the whip, district collector Kona Sasidhar has dismissed seven staffers of panchayathraj department and directed the Zila Parishad chief executive officer to lodge a police complaint against all the officials involved in embezzlement of NREGS funds. While the staffers removed from the service were part-time employees, Nuzendla mandal MPDO and another four officials were also facing criminal charges.
According to initial audit reports, about Rs 1.4 crore was siphoned off in the guise of laying roads in the Nuzendla mandal in 2017. Following the complaints, Sasidhar directed the project director of District Water Management Authority (DWMA), the nodal agency, to carry out NREGS works to conduct an indepth enquiry into the issue. Subsequently, special teams were appointed to conduct social audit in the presence of public. The social audit teams found that the officials, including MPDO, were involved in the scandal.
Panchayathraj engineering, DWMA, panchayathraj and local mandal parishad employees pocketed huge amounts without laying the proposed roads in the mandal. District collector granted the funds to construct 35 roads in the Nuzendla mandal to create employment to the poor as well as improving the road connectivity to the remote villages from the mandal head quarter town.
Surprisingly, the social audit teams found that field teams showed spending of Rs 70 lakh in a single day. “All the officials cleared the file pertaining to the spending of Rs 70 lakh in a span of just 24 hours,” said ZP CEO Suryaprakash Rao. He said that they have lodged a complaint with the local police against all the 12 employees following the instructions of the district collector.
The district collector said that no one would be spared if public money is misused. He said that they would also enforce revenue recovery act to recover the monies siphoned off by the staffers.