Madhya Pradesh procures more ‘dal’ than produced

BJP leaders and the MP chief CM never tires about boasting that Madhya Pradesh has ceased to be a Bimaru state. Even BJP president Amit Shah praised the progress made by the state under the stewardship of Shivraj Singh Chouhan. But the ground reality is entirely different.

Above all, MP has emerged as one of the most corrupt states in the Indian Union. The Vyapam scam had hit headlines not just here but abroad. Not a single day passes when newspapers don't carry stories of corrupt practices in the state. The first three days of September are a case in point.

Bhopal edition of The Times of India on Sunday, September 3 reported on the bungling in the procurement of moong dal, pointing out that the state government appears to have procured a lot more than was produced by the farmers in the state during the past five years.

Quoting information revealed by the state government under RTI, the report recalled that the state government claimed to have spent ₹1,200 crore in the procurement of Moong Dal. While the produce began arriving in the market in April, the procurement started in July by when a large number of farmers would have sold their produce to private traders, which put a question mark on the procurement claims of the state government.

The suspicion of widespread fraud was confirmed by the District Collector of Harda, where 900 ghost farmers were detected to have sold Moon Dal to the state on paper. The district spent nearly ₹200 crore on the procurement. The ‘agreement’ ostensibly signed by one farmer declaring the net area sown and other details, the same document was used to show procurement from the ghost farmers.

It is also revealing that despite setting up three probe committees and having received their report, the state government has not been able to take any action. The first two inquiries were said to have been inconclusive!

Dams in Bundelkhand: Yet another newspaper Free Press Journal reported this week that an inquiry ordered by the high court has unearthed irregularities in the construction of 350 stop dams in Bundelkhand region.

The UPA government had allocated ₹3,800 crore to construct stop dams for giving relief to farmers in the drought-hit region. The executing agency of the project was the state government and Chief Technical Examiner R K Mehra has confirmed that 90% of the amount were actually wasted.

Social activist Pawan Ghuwara claimed that he had lodged several complaints regarding corruption and irregularities to the government but no action was taken. He had then filed a petition before the high court, which ordered the inquiry. Mehra informed the court that his random inspections had revealed that construction had started even before the approval of drawing and design. In some places the construction was said to have been completed with just half the amount allocated.

₹600 crore swindled: Hindi daily ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ in yet another report alleged that the Property Registration Department had caused a loss of ₹600 crore to the exchequer by charging lower Stamp Duty than was due. And the figure, it suggested, was from Bhopal alone. The gap was detected by the Income Tax Department, the report claimed.

Poor healthcare in Bhopal: The illusion of a well administered state is also punctured by reports on the healthcare facilities in the state capital itself. According to Bhaskar, the Cathlab of Hamidia Hospital attached to Bhopal Medical College is not in operation for several months. Because of this poor patients with heart ailments and advised angiography and angioplasty are being referred to private hospitals. Sultania Hospital, which is also a large women’s hospital in Bhopal, also does not seem to have a functional ECG machine.

Vacant posts of teachers: More than 31,000 posts of teachers in government schools are vacant for several years. There are large numbers of schools with no teacher at all. In some cases one teacher is teaching in five grades. English teachers are teaching science and Hindi teachers are teaching geography and Maths.

If these are not indications of a Bimaru state, what is?