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| Govt fails to fix responsibility for irregularities in flood relief | | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Feb 20: Three years on, the government is yet to fix responsibility for irregularities in flood relief distribution. A massive flood hit the state in September 2014. The government announced relief to victims. However, there was a massive bungling in relief distribution.
"Various reports found that there were irregularities in crores of rupees but no action has been taken so far," an official said.
The official said that government is yet to recover the money from officials who were involved in frauds. "Atleast government should fix the responsibility to somebody for involved in frauds," the official said.
The official said that an official report had revealed that floods caused death to 304 persons, damaged 2,40,004 houses, and caused loss of 26,461 live stock. The state government had authorized the JK Industries Limited (JKIC) for procurement of tents for providing temporary shelters to families whose houses were fully damaged. "The JKCL procured 20,345 tents at a cost of Rs 13.26 crore. 4467 tents valuing Rs 2.84 crore were lying unutilized and 536 tents valuing Rs 34.04 lakh had gone missing during transit from Srinagar to Anantnag and Budgam," the official said, while quoting the official report.
"Nearly 25 percent of the tents procured at Rs 3.18 crore could not be used for intended purposes," the report had said. As per the guidelines for operations of SDRF envisages payment of relief of Rs 1300 per family for loss of clothing and Rs 1400 for loss of utensils/household goods to families whose houses were either washed away or inundated for more than a week or fully damaged.
However, the report had said that relief amounting to Rs 12.60 crore was "not provided" to 46,680 eligible ones. "On the other hand, gratuitous relief of Rs 1.42 crore was provided to ineligible families of Rs 0.91 crore and to families not affected by flood Rs 0.51 crore," the report had said.
Similarly, the government provided Rs 2.14 crore under the SDRF to the SMC for collection of garbage and its disposal at the land fill site located at Acchan and for disposal of carcasses after the floods of September 2014.
The Corporation incurred an expenditure of Rs 1.37 crore on collection of Rs 73,435 metric tonnes of garbage and its disposal at landfill site during September 17 to November 15, 2014. However, the report had said that records showed that number of tipper trucks and JCBs shown utilized by the SMC for garbage clearance was at variance with the number verified by the ward officers. "Payment for 441 days, 19 nights in respect of tipper trucks and 102 days and 22 nights in respect of JCBs was made in excess of payments verified by ward officers. The amount involved was Rs 31.26 lakh," it reads.
The report states that Rs 1.30 crore was provided to four PWD divisions of Srinagar from the SDRF for restoration of washed out damaged roads was also shown spent on lifting of garbage, clearance of drain in Srinagar.
"The details of vehicles utilized by the divisions for disposal of garbage/mulba including the details of agencies from whom they were hired, were not on record," it said. The report had said that Rs 31.44 crore was released to seven departments that were not eligible for assistance under SDRF. The official said that government should have taken action against the fraud ones. |
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