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Journalism of Courage
On Monday, the development economist Jean Dreze flagged off the social audit of NREG schemes in Chatarpur, the same block in Palamau where his colleague Lalit Mehta set up Vikas Sahyog Kendra, an NGO, in 2002.
Chatarpur is less than 3 km from Khendra-Khurd village where Lalit had undertaken a social audit of pond project two days before his body was found on May 16. The pond is being dug by the forest department.
“A CD of the social audit was in my son’s possession. The CD showed large-scale irregularities. I suspect this led to his murder,” said Jagdish Mehta, Lalit’s father.
On Monday, during the social audit, more than a dozen persons lodged complaints against officials and contractors implementing the NREG schemes in Chatarpur. “There is too much corruption here. If this is not contained, it will be very difficult for the scheme to take off,” said Dreze, one of the prime movers of the UPA’s flagship project.
The audit that Dreze’s team did in Chatarpur’s Rs 5-lakh pond project, after Mehta’s murder, revealed several irregularities:
• Muster rolls were not kept at work sites. Job cards were not updated. Payments were not made regularly.
• In the muster, there were 108 names. When the team visited the site on May 17, it found eight workers.
• The signatures of workers were forged. The team established this fact by comparing the signatures its members obtained with samples maintained by the department.
• Urmila Devi, a worker, was illiterate and could not sign. But the muster roll carried her signature in Hindi.
• The signatures of a dozen residents such as Vikram Singh, Ranjit Singh and Santosh Kunwar who had reportedly migrated and not returned were found in the register.
After he was told about the findings by Dreze on May 21, Palamau Deputy Commissioner N.P.Singh ordered an inquiry into the findings.
