Govt to take direct transfer route to ‘flush out’ system

LUCKNOW:In a bid to check alleged corruption in toilet construction in villages, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to transfer funds directly to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts discontinuing the current practice of making money available to village pradhans for building individual household loos under the ‘Clean India’ mission.

Setting June 25 as the deadline, the state government has asked pradhans to build the toilets or return the fund to the government deciding to give the money to all the beneficiaries in future through direct benefit transfer (DBT).

The move comes in the wake of the government receiving complaints about irregularities and slow pace of work with regard to construction of toilets under the ‘Leaving No One Behind’ (LNOB) initiative under which all those families who could not be covered in the earlier sanitation scheme will get Rs 12,000 each for construction of toilet.

“We have provided a window upto June 25 to pradhans asking them to build toilets by this period or return the money already sent to them so the funds could be transferred directly to the beneficiaries,” director, panchayati raj, Kinjal Singh said.

“Not only were irregularities being reported but the funds had also lying dumped unutilised at the level of village panchayats,” she said. “In future, we will send money to beneficiaries for all other scheme also through the DBT only,” she added.

According to joint director KS Awasthi, a total 13.81 lakh new individual household latrines/ toilets are to be built in the state under the Leaving No One Behind initiative during the current fiscal and around Rs 12 crore had been transferred to pradhans’ accounts but the money was not being utilised.

“Now, pradhans have been asked to build toilets or return the money to the district panchayati raj officer (DPRO) concerned by June 25 after which the DPROs will transfer the money to the beneficiaries’ accounts. The beneficiaries will be provided Rs 12,000 each in two instalments and the second instalment would be released only after they complete half the work,” Awasthi added.

UP was declared open defecation free (ODF) in October last year though it was found that many people did not get a toilet as their name could not find a mention in the beneficiaries’ list prepared on the basis on socioeconomic survey 2011-12. They were covered later on under the extended ‘Clean India’ mission but it was found that there were still many more households without a toilet in rural areas.

“The central government launched a fresh scheme LNOB to cover all such households and the number of such families has been calculated to be 13.80 lakh,” Awasthi said.