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The Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) has demanded a CBI probe into the irregularities in the Prime Ministers' relief package for farmers in this suicide-hit region of Maharashtra after corruption allegations in a recent report.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has come out with serious allegations of massive corruption in Prime Minister and Chief Minister relief packages amounting to Rs 5,000 crore disbursed to West Vidarbha in 2005-2006 to stop cotton farmers' suicides.
The VJAS has sent a fresh complaint to the Prime Minister urging him to order a CBI probe into all the misdeeds in the relief package work, including irrigation contracts, Samiti President Mr Kishore Tiwari said in a press release on Wednesday.
If the Prime Minister failed to order a CBI probe, we would move the High Court to seek justice to three million dying Vidarbha farmers', Mr Tiwari said.
The package involved distribution of two milch animals to each affected family. The government agreed to bear 75 per cent of the purchase cost, while the beneficiaries had to arrange for the remaining amount. A rider that the animals could not be sold for at least three years and had to be produced at the time of verification was put in place.
A scrutiny of status reports in Akola, Amravati and Yavatmal by the CAG in March 2010, however, revealed that 385 of the 10,210 animals distributed under the package were not available with the beneficiaries. These had either been sold (473) or were not in the beneficiary's possession (1,867) at the time of verification; 509 others had died.
Similar discrepancies were also observed in an independent package announced by then CM in February 2006. He had sanctioned a package of Rs 30 crore, which also dealt with 75 per cent subsidy in purchase of two large milch animals or 10 sheep and a goat. Even in this case, reports in the three districts showed that nearly 37 per cent of the 6,090 animals were not available with the farmers.
While 517 had been sold, 1266 were not traceable, and 466 were reported dead.
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