Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath (File photo)

CHIEF MINISTER Yogi Adityanath has directed that an FIR be registered against former director of the Panchayati Raj department as well as district level Panchayati Raj officers from 12 districts for allegedly providing performance grant to non-eligible gram panchayats ignoring the Centre’s guidelines and government orders in this regard.

The incident dates back to 2017 and Adityanath approved registration of FIR under section 7 and 13 (1) of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Both state level and district level officers are being investigated in this case and districts include Barabanki, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Saharanpur, Etawah, Deoria, Mahrajganj, Azamgarh, Gorakhpur, Mathura, Agra, Aligarh.

A government spokesperson informed that the former director (now retired) concerned is Anil Kumar Damele and other senior officials against whom registration of FIR has been approved include additional director Rajendra Singh, chief finance and account officer Keshav Singh, among others.

While section 7 defines public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act, which is punishable with imprisonment of not less than six months, which may be extended to five years and shall also be liable to a fine.

Meanwhile, Section 13(1) of the Act defines public servant is said to commit the offence of criminal misconduct. The punishment defined for the same is imprisonment for a term not less than a year, which may be extended to seven years.

Sources in the government said there was misapropriation of about Rs 107 crore funds in the name of “performance grant” to non-eligible Gram panchayats. Official spokesperson of the government informed that there was vigilance inquiry ordered into the incident, which is still going on and based on the vigilance report out of 1798 gram panchayats of 31 districts, performance grant was allocated to 1,123 gram panchayats in an unauthorised manner and neglecting guidelines.

In the Panchayati Raj Department, while 90 percent grant is given as a basic grant, about 10 per cent of the grant is given as “performance grant”, which is given based on the revenue collection, utilisation of funds and so on.

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