Shinde tells home secy to probe border area grant scam
Friday, 21/09/2012
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CHANDIGARH/PATIALA: Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde has ordered an audit into utilisation of Border Area Development Programme (BADP) funds in Punjab after a meeting with a delegation of Congress leaders from the state.
“He (Shinde) has directed the union home secretary to conduct an audit," said Gurdaspur MP Partap Singh Bajwa, who led a delegation of Congress MLAs Sukhjinder Randhawa and SS Sukhsarkaria, and Amritsar district Congress chief Harpartap Singh Ajnala, as they met Shinde in Delhi for a CBI inquiry into the embezzlement of funds in former Punjab minister Gulzar Singh Ranike's constituency Attari in Amritsar district.
The home ministry releases the grant, which was siphoned off by depositing the cheques in fake accounts opened in the names of beneficiary panchayats' members. The state government submitted utilisation certificates even as the villages never got the money. Ranike, a senior leader of Punjab's ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), resigned after HT blew the lid off the scam in a series of reports. The delegation shared the HT reports with Shinde.
In a memorandum to Shinde, they alleged that the Akalis used central grants to buy votes. “The recent revelations… are an eyeopener. It is shameful that the Akali-BJP ministers… have even siphoned off the funds under the Shagun scheme meant for poor girls for their marriage.”
They said the embezzlement is not limited to Ranike, and sought a probe into all BADP funds released in the last five years, besides holdback of funds till the probe ends.
As per estimates, Rs 42 lakh of the 2008-09 BADP grant were found siphoned off, while similar embezzlement of Rs 20 lakh was detected in the 2011-12 grants. Also, embezzlement of Rs 2 crore has been detected from discretionary grants of Ranike.
An FIR was registered into the embezzlement of BADP funds last year, and into the pocketing of discretionary grants this June. The Punjab government has shifted the probe to the state vigilance bureau.
