Scam in PMAY: Unakoti district administration lodged FIRs against 3 Panchayat secretaries

The Unakoti district administration has lodged FIRs against three Gram Panchayat secretaries for their alleged involvement with embezzlement of government funds meant for Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY).

Sources said that as the scheme benefit of PMAW, every beneficiary has to receive a fixed amount for construction of their houses, but in these cases, concerned authorities had collected money from beneficiaries to provide them PMAY scheme benefit.

Sources said that three Gram Panchayats under Gournagar RD Block of Kailashahar had allotted PMAY houses to other persons in lure of inducement to some persons, who are not entitled to get the scheme benefit.

After such incidents came to light, some deprived people lodged their written complaint before the then District Magistrate (DM) Dr Vishal Kumar and Dr Kumar after receiving such complaints had issued an order of investigation and assigned the task to the BDO of Gournagar Block Rameshwar Chakraborty.

Later, BDO over the instruction of DM has lodged FIRs against three Panchayat secretaries including Hossain Uddion of Srinathpur Gram Panchayat,  Ranjit Kumar Deb of Tilla Bazar Gram Panchayat and Abdul Goffar of Laxmipur Gram Panchayat at the Irani and Kailashahar police stations.

Giving details of the cases, OC of Irani police station Jatindra Das said that a house under PMAY was sanctioned for one Kamala Begum of Srinathpur Gram Panchayat. Later, one of the accused persons had demanded a bribe from Kamala Begum to release the sanction amount for construction of the house.

When Kamala Begun refused to pay the bribe, the Gram Panchayat authorities shifted the scheme benefit to another person in exchange of money.

Similarly, Panchayat authorities of Tilla Bazar Gram Panchayat denied the PMAY benefit to the villagers Sirajul Islam, Abdul Kayem, Mayarun Bibi, Askar Ali, Nazrul  Ali when they refused to pay inducement money to Panchayat secretary and transferred the scheme benefit to other villagers.

Similar allegations of transfer of scheme benefit to non-entity villagers were also registered against the Gram Panchayat authority of Laxmipur Gram Panchayat.

Sources said that this scam of PMAY houses held in the financial year 2021-2022 and a section of government employees posted at the Gournagar RD Block were also involved.

Meanwhile, sources said that though the BDO has officially lodged FIRs against three Panchayat secretaries, till last report police did not register the FIRs over the alleged political intervention to protect accused secretaries.