Two central teams comprising officials from the union ministry of rural development will visit two districts of West Bengal on Thursday for field inspections or rapid checks amid allegations of rampant corruption in the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
There have been charges that a large number of people who have big bungalows made it to the list of 2018 as beneficiaries.
The Trinamool Congress government has started a 3-step verification process to delete bogus names and so far 22 lakh have been purged from the 2018 list, said sources.
The opposition BJP has raised questions on the deletion procedure, alleging that its supporters have been removed.
CNN-News18 had recently done a ground report from East Medinipur where more than 40% names have been deleted. It is one of the areas the central teams will be visiting apart from Malda. Three senior officers will go to each district, said sources.
Before the panchayat polls in the state this year, the PMAY row has provided ammunition to both the ruling and opposition sides. The BJP is stating that this verification process by the TMC government is a ruse to names of the saffron party’s supporters from the list of beneficiaries.
The TMC is maintaining that the state government is purging bogus beneficiaries in a bid to drive out corruption. It is also claiming that the number of deletions is more in East Medinipur as the area comes under BJP legislator and leader of opposition in the assembly Suvendu Adhikari who got his supporters on the list through underhanded means. The party plans to do a press conference on the whole issue on Thursday.
As reports came in of the visit by the central teams, Suvendu posted about it on Twitter.
I welcome the decision of @MoRD_GoI Minister Shri @girirajsinghbjp Ji to depute Central Teams; comprising of competent Senior Level Officers for field inspection of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin (PMAY-G) houses in WB. Corrupt thieves who deprived the poor need to be jailed. pic.twitter.com/Lg1iTFLZLj— Suvendu Adhikari • শুভেন্দু অধিকারী (@SuvenduWB) January 4, 2023
State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar also took to the microblogging site.
Grateful to Shri @girirajsinghbjp Ji for deputing a Central Team of diligent officers for field inspection/rapid check of PMAY-G houses in Purba Medinipur and Malda. This is the beginning of the end of the “BDO-PANCHAYAT PRADHAN” nexus. pic.twitter.com/NBI0Bc0EJx— Dr. Sukanta Majumdar (@DrSukantaBJP) January 4, 2023
Responding to the development, TMC leader Tapas Roy said, “They (the central teams) are most welcome but I hope they will not have political motives.”
In the 2022-23 financial year, a total of 11.36 lakh beneficiaries are supposed to get Rs 1.2 lakh each to construct houses in rural areas of the state. The complete list was to be ready by December 31.
Sources say that more than 10 lakh dwellings sanctions have taken place.
A senior official in the administration told News18, “The efficient and meticulous planning of the entire process pushed the state to achieve this unprecedented feat. Despite time limitation, all the 56.87 lakh registered houses were physically inspected and about 22 lakh ineligible beneficiaries were deleted from the Awas Plus list.”
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