The Madhya Pradesh authorities has ordered an inquiry following revelations {that a} panchayat block in Vidisha district had funded practically 6,000 weddings underneath a welfare scheme in two years – a “high” quantity by all estimates.
Sironj block in Vidisha district paid Rs 30 crore to five,976 beneficiaries underneath Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojana between April 2019 and May 2021, state Mineral Resources and Labor Minister Brijendra Pratap Singh stated in a reply within the meeting on Wednesday. In the identical interval, Sironj Municipal Corporation space spent Rs 40.8 lakh on eight weddings, whereas Leteri Municipality spent Rs 76.5 lakh on 15 weddings underneath the scheme.
The scheme offers Rs 51,000 as monetary help to newly married {couples} to assist economically weaker households get their daughters married.
Most of the beneficiaries are laborers registered with the State Building and Other Construction Workers Board.
The minister gave the figures whereas replying to a query by his social gathering colleague and Sironj MLA Umakant Sharma, who alleged that “the figure was too high”. Sharma alleged that “bogus beneficiaries” had been motivated to “grab benefits by corrupt employees”.
Speaker Girish Gautam additionally questioned the minister on the figures: “How is it possible that around 6,000 marriages took place and Rs 30 crore were spent in a single block considering the COVID period?” He urged the minister to represent a crew to probe the matter.
Sharma stated he first got here to know concerning the alleged corruption when two beneficiaries of Ghuhua village complained that that they had not acquired full cost. He stated the complaints had been investigated and located to be real. “That was when I sought details of the beneficiaries of the scheme in Sironj block and learned that there were around 6,000 of them,” Sharma stated.
Sharma has blamed the CEO of the Janpad Panchayat in Vidisha for the alleged corruption and demanded his suspension and switch to make sure a good probe. “The CEO has been at Sironj for more than two years and was in Leteri before that. Despite two attempts by the state government to shift him, he remained there even after getting a stay from the court,” Sharma instructed The Indian Express.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
