MP sarpanchs swindle Rs 8-crore under MGNREGS

TIKAMGARH (MP): A sum of Rs eight crore was allegedly swindled by village sarpanchs in Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ( MGNREGS), officials said today.

There are a total of 459 Gram Panchayats in this district and secretaries and sarpanchs of 121 of them had swindled the money following which directions have been issued by Collector Raghuraj M Rajan to recover this amount from them, they said.

The amount included Rs 6.47 crore from 39 Gram Panchayats of Tikamgarh Janpad, Rs 50 lakh from 23 Gram Panchayats of Baldevgarh and Rs 10 lakh from ten Gram Panchayats of Prithvipur.

The alleged misappropriation began in February 2006 when MGNREGS was launched and went on till June 2009. The elected members swindled the money by withdrawing money from banks and not using it for any development work.

The biggest problem in the recovery is coming from the fact that fresh panchayat elections were held in 2010 and many of those involved in this have failed to get re-elected.