Church questions award to Kandhamal

(April 28, 2011) Church and human right activists in eastern India’s Orissa State have welcomed a probe into a multi-billion rural employment scheme but question why the government has awarded the Kandhamal administration for implementing the program. “There are lots of anomalies in the program defeating its very purpose,” Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of Berhampur said on Wednesday, reacting to a Supreme Court order, for a probe into the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The court on Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to look into the matter after a New Delhi-based NGO, the Centre for Environment and Food Security, filed a Public Interest Litigation. The court also acted on reports of the Controller of Auditor General of India and directed the federal and Orissa governments to probe misappropriation and irregularities. Bishop Nayak said failure to strictly monitor the scheme’s implementation “would be a mockery in the name of the poor.” The NGO conducted its study in Berhampur diocese. Its report noted that some 7.33 billion rupees was spent under the scheme during 2006-2007, but government officials pocketed nearly 75 percent of the fund.