The Statesman - Opposition demands all party probe

The Statesman
News paper report:

Opp demands all party probe

Statesman News Service
BHUBANESWAR, Aug 20: The spate of scandals relating to foeticide, fake medicine, manipulation of mark sheet of a minister’s son and now the alleged misuse of NREGA funds to the tune of Rs 500 crore need to be probed by an all party committee of the assembly demanded the Opposition political parties here today.
The Orissa Gana Parishad, CPI, CPI(M), in their joint statement demanded that a special session of the assembly should be summoned to discuss the NREGA scam unearthed by a Delhi based NGO.
At a press conference held a couple of days ago in Delhi, the Centre for Environment and Food Security said it had conducted a survey on implementation of NREGA in Orissa and found that at least Rs 500 crore had been misused.
Referring to findings of the survey, the Opposition said it exposes the corrupt practices adopted by the Naveen Patnaik government. Till date the Opposition has been raising issues of rampant corruption in the state but now even non-political organizations are finding Orissa on top of the corruption list, they charged.
The survey says that not a single person has got 100 days work in the state under the NREGA scheme and of the 100 villages surveyed by the NGO , 18 had not received job cards, over 36 villages had not been provided with any work and in 23 villages the job cards were deposited with the junior engineer.
It has also found instances of fake job cards and non payment for over 4 to 8 months.
Such shocking facts call for an immediate probe at the highest level and since the government is involved an all party committee of the assembly should conduct the inquiry said the Opposition leaders.
The Opposition also pointed out that central teams probing into the foeticide issue should be followed by teams which would investigate the fake medicine and the NREGA scam.

CM review
Chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik reviewed the progress in National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and stressed on creation of permanent assets in rural areas.
The review, as per official sources, found that the implementation was successful to a great extent. It also noted that the rural development ministry had commended the efforts of the state and described it as a role-model for other states. The review pointed out that social audit regular verification of muster rolls made this scheme transparent and accountable.