The fingers of suspicion are pointing towards BJP's men, and the onus will be on the BJP-led government to come clean. It's time the political leadership get's its act together
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Goa Lokayukta's order in the labour fund disbursal scam is yet another major embarrassment for the State government. It exposes how it continues to mismanage public money callously, that too in a financially grim pandemic situation where life has been a daily struggle for people.
The Lokayukta has found merit in the charge that there is indeed fraudulent distribution of the fund meant for building and other construction workers (BOCW). The order to file FIR against those involved and a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation only reflects the seriousness and scale of financial impropriety in this case.
Mismanagement of public money continues unabated, and the government has failed to learn from past experiences where crores of rupees have been lost through fake beneficiaries. Lest we forget, a haphazard and fraudulent registration process resulted in money being channeled to bogus names. As of last year, there were around 35,000 fake beneficiaries detected under the Dayanand Social Security Scheme and another 20,000 under the Griha Aadhar scheme.
The question now is, why did the government not have a mechanism to oversee the disbursal of funds which went into crores of rupees? How was a private agency entrusted with the job to register workers without any checks and balances? Is the government convinced that this fund has reached the construction workers? There are around 15,491 labourers registered under the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Fund that is maintained by the Goa Labour Welfare Board. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant may have briefly displayed names of Goans in the list of beneficiaries, but the list doesn't pass muster unless there are proper scrutinies and an authentication process.
As of May-end, a total of 18 states had transferred amounts ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 6,000 to the bank accounts of around 1.8 crore construction workers from the designated cess funds at their disposal. It's a shame that in Goa, politically-affiliated leaders, including sarpanchas and panchas, got their names registered as construction workers and benefited from the dole. In contrast, actual workers struggled for a living. The working class has been the worst hit by the pandemic, and there were times when they could barely meet their daily food requirement. Their misery continues even today because construction activity is yet to pick up despite the State going into unlock mode.
The ball is now back in the government's court, and if its intentions are genuine, it has to take the Lokayukta order very seriously. The entire process of registration and fund disbursal must be thoroughly investigated, and the private contractor hired for the job has to be held accountable. There has to be a strong deterrent against such practices, and all those associated have to be brought to book. The fingers of suspicion are pointing towards BJP's men, and the onus will be on the BJP-led government to come clean. It's time the political leadership get's its act together.
