Scam or not, Govt schemes need scrutiny
The alleged MGNREGA celebrities scam, which has assumed national proportions with National TV channels leading with the story, will have a larger fallout footprint than the facts of the case as they emerge.
The initial effort of the Goa Parivartan Manch to scrutinize the lists of beneficiaries of Chimbel saw them unearth lists of ‘beneficiaries’ with names of celebrities ranging from cricketers to actors, has opened the door for further scrutiny of this ambitious scheme. For that reason alone the effort may not be a total waste. Secondly, the Rural Development agency has completely denied this list saying that the list itself was not valid since those names were on a dummy training list for those running the scheme and that job cards were not given to them. The RDA said that these names were marked with a symbol and deleted. However the Goa Parivartan Manch found these names on the website.
What is crucial here that since the issue is in public domain, a denial and a clarification should not rest it because if there are instances of false beneficiaries and not just dummy names that were used for training, not just here in Chimbel but in other villages; this should be exposed.
The onus clearly lies on the governments Rural Development Agency, of North Goa and the Rural Development department to explain that the names were dummies and not bogus names, used to train staff in implementing the scheme. While the department has explained through a clarification and denial of the facts issued by the Goa Parivartan Manch, some questions remain.
The names of celebrities were registered, according to the Project Director and Ex officio Joint secretary VN Shetye, but these registration numbers had a different pattern from the genuine registrations. Even if the Rural Development Agencies contention is accepted, it is imperative that it emerges to show such a pattern across talukas. It also needs to prove and emphasize that this procedure is adopted for all schemes. It needs to do this not just to clear itself from allegations, completely false or otherwise but to ensure that the Union Ministry of Rural Development continues to sanction and disburse funds to Goa.
The episode has also served another purpose. It has created a ground to check, whether all schemes of the Center and the State ultimately reach the beneficiary at the bottom of the value chain. While the case of the Chimbel celebrity beneficiaries, may not end up being quite scam it was touted to be, it is a good time to look at whether public money is being distributed by the government, reaches the people it was meant for. The ‘Laadli Lakshmi’, Griha Aadhar and the DSS schemes are heavily dependent on facilitation by local MLAs and ruling party officials. While there hasn’t been any complaint or uproar, the State benefits completely if it develops its own checks and balances.
There are ways of institutionalizing it and since this is a Parrikar government. But an out of the box decision to ensure transparency will tie in with Parikar’s zero tolerance to corruption mantra, which has on several occasions been questioned. The government can now form a transparency commission which not only looks at project clearances beyond a certain amount but checks on whether schemes, all of which involve pay outs from the exchequer are being run in a transparent manner. This will put in place an ombudsman at the inception of the scheme and not come to a state where the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Vigilance department comes in to shut the stables after the horses have bolted.
And finally in passing, a word of caution for the Goa Parivartan Manch. It is important for whistle blowers to be as transparent as the subjects they blow their bugle against. A distinct impression was conveyed that information they received on the celebrity beneficiaries were derived through the RTI route. It is now clear that that they got it through the website route. And to top it, the GPM advisor Yatish Naik, otherwise a public spirited dynamic advocate, managed to hand over his complaint to the Governor and send copies to the President. Whistle blowers like him should indeed have a place in Goa, but blowing the wrong whistle once too often makes whistle blowing into crying wolf.
