Though the Uttarakhand High Court passed an order in a case involving alleged irregularities in funds disbursal to BPL families for construction of toilets, there is more to it that meets the eye

Are government schemes and scams inseparable?

Five years following submission of a probe report by the local tehsildar of Vikasnagar in Dehradun district, the Uttarakhand High Court has directed police to file an FIR against officials who misappropriated funds disbursed to incentivise building of toilets by families belonging to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category in Jassowala village located in the tehsil.

The court also asked the state government to initiate disciplinary action against them inside of two weeks.

On June 15, a bench of Justices Rajiv Sharma and Lok Pal Singh disposed of a writ petition filed by advocate Sunderlal Saini in 2015. The PIL was based on this report as well as the complaints of several residents of the village belonging to the BPL category.

Tehsildar Manvar Singh Kandari’s 2013 probe report stated that money had been transferred to accounts of several villagers who were dead at the time of the disbursal.

“The purpose of the scheme has been defeated by the functionaries of the state government. It was incumbent on the authority concerned to ensure construction of toilets on the basis of the money sanctioned by the central government,” the order said.

Interestingly, however, although the probe report is dated 2013 and the so-called scam took place between the years 2007 and 2012, the petition inflated the amount of money supposedly misappropriated, basing the calculations on the current incentive rate of Rs 12,000 per family under Narendra Modi’s Swacch Bharat Mission launched October 2, 2014. The text of the petition also states that the BPL residents did not receive the Rs 12,000 incentive in so many words. It is a glaring discrepancy.

According to Kandari’s report as well as information accessed by Saini through an RTI (Right to Information) application from the drinking water and sanitation department, a total of 149 toilets were set up in the village between 2007 and 2012. However, the gram panchayat has shown in its documents that 50 toilets were built in 2007, 99 in 2009 and 32 in 2012.

Under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, which was in place during this time, a sum of Rs 1,200 was to be given to each BPL household for building a toilet. This was upgraded to Rs 2,700 in 2009 and Rs 3,700 in 2012. This would imply that the balance, of just under Rs 1.2 lakh, has been misappropriated.

The gram panchayat pradhan, Praveen Saini, and the gram panchayat development officer are the persons indicted in the petition as well as Kandari’s report.

“It is not so important that it is a scam of Rs 100 or Rs 1 crore. It is a matter of depriving the poorest of poor of their hard-earned dues. I welcome the court order,” advocate BS Adhikari who was lawyer for the petitioner told India Legal. He, however, was not sure about the exact amount of money misappropriated at the time of speaking to this correspondent.

It is likely that the aggrieved has already been compensated. After all, it is a very small amount, Adhikari said.

However, there may be yet another side to the story. The order issued by Justices Sharma and Singh states that the counter-affidavit in the case was not filed by the state government.

Community development consultant with Swajal project, which has been overseeing drinking water and sanitation infrastructure creation in Uttarakhand, Anubha Rawat, told India Legal, “We had our papers ready, but the court notice failed to reach us. That the money was handed over to dead persons or non-beneficiaries is a wrongful accusation. In 2009, for instance, the petition lists five non-beneficiaries who got the amount. If a toilet is built in a house, every member of the family will be its beneficiary. And in all these cases, the amount was received by family members of the deceased.”

Rawat explained that all that transpired was that there was delay in releasing the money on the part of the governments. “As a result, some of the beneficiaries expired during the waiting period. The petition is a motivated one, filed with an eye to the panchayat elections which are due in six months in the state,” she said.

“This petition is the result of a caste dispute and has been filed to harass the pradhan, with an eye to the coming panchayat elections. Praveen Saini’s rival belongs to a powerful clique of villagers who has convinced the others to complain that they have not received incentive so they can get hold of the enhanced amount under the new scheme,” Rawat said.

Meanwhile, the running of the Swacch Bharat Mission too is not as smooth as it seems. Its aim is to make all villages of India open defecation-free. As of now, 12 states and union territories have been declared so, including Uttarakhand. The others are Maharashtra, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Daman and Diu, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Meghalaya.

But according to a recent Unicef report, in India, more than half of the population of close to 600 million still engage in open defecation. In Varanasi, the prime minister’s own constituency, there are 1,337 villages of which only 600 have been declared ODF. Still, even those places that wear this tag wear it shabbily.

Mohan Sarai, which was established by Sher Shah Suri, has 429 families. Of them, 333 families already had toilets. Some 126 families did not have toilets. Since April 24, 2016, soon after the district administration disbursed the requisite funds, it has been declared ODF.

However, in a series of reports titled Shauchalaya Ka Sach run by APN TV, villager Mahendra says he got only 1,000 rupees as incentive for his efforts. Another villager, Shamsoon Begum, has only one room. She had to build her toilet in the same room. Shamsher and his family have to climb a ladder to go to the loo built on the roof of their house. Virendra Kumar, head of inspection committee, said the matters are being looked into.

Uttarakhand was also declared ODF recently. Yet in capital Dehra Dun, the municipal corporation complex does not have a toilet. On October 2, Governor KK Paul laid the foundation stone for a toilet. But the toilet has not been constructed as of December 9, 2017. There are 60-70 shops in the Nagar Nigam complex, Vijay Vardhan Tthatthriyal, a local resident, said. The lack of a toilet spoils the hygiene of the area, he said. Mayor Vinod Chamoli said there are toilets near Deendayal Park, A probe will be conducted in the matter.

Ishwariganj village in Kanpur, too, has been declared ODF. Ramnath Kovind visited the place on account of this recently. Urmila Devi and her son got two toilets from the administration, but here they store cowdung cakes. Asked why they don’t use the toilets, they said the cakes must be kept there to stop them from getting wet in the rain. Many other people like her habitually defecate in the open. It is a habit that is hard to break. A local said Sulabh complexes won’t work here as people will not use them.

Berajhawar Idgah Colony does not have a toilet. No home has a toilet. Six months ago, toilet building started but work was abandoned halfway.

In Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar, toilet roofs have collapsed in rain. As poor quality material was used in the construction, there have been leakages and collapses. Cisterns are non-functional and floors have broken tiles.

—India Legal Bureau