Kolkata: Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Thursday, issued notices to a number of state government officers for interrogation in connection with the alleged irregularities in implementation of the 100-day job scheme under MGNREGA in West Bengal.
Sources said that all of them have been summoned between February 12 and February 15 at ED’s Salt Lake office in the northern outskirts of Kolkata.
Among those summoned, two are West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS)- cadre ranking officials. One of them is Sanchayan Pan, a deputy collector ranking official and another is Suvrangshu Mondal, also a WBCS officer.
Sources said that the ED sleuths, after preliminary investigation, has identified two types of irregularities in the implementation of the 100- day job scheme in West Bengal.
The first irregularity, according to sources, is in relation to fake job cards created for the beneficiaries under this scheme. The second irregularity is the use of fake caste certificates that were used in the process of creation of fake job cards.
On Tuesday only ED sleuths conducted marathon raid and search operations at four different locations in West Bengal in relation to this case.
Sources said that ED sleuths had been silently carrying out the background investigation in the 100- day job scheme based on specific complaints and inputs that they received. After the process of accumulation of the basic evidence was over the ED sleuths started these raid and search operations from Tuesday morning.
Currently, the focus of the investigation is how a section of the state government employees as well as some political functionaries played an instrumental role in carrying out the irregularities through the creation of fake job cards.
ED actions in the matter are extremely significant amid the surfacing of CAG findings about the non-submission of ‘utilization certificates’ by the West Bengal government for fund utilization under different centrally sponsored schemes.
(IANS)
