PUNE: At a time when the Centre plans to borrow Maharashtra’s model Employment Guarantee Scheme to enact the Employment Guarantee Act, a Rs 9.1 crore EGS fraud in the state’s Solapur district has set off alarm bells.

In June, Solapur District Collector Manisha Varma suspected foul play when she found that labour attendance at EGS works had crossed one lakh. The number of works underway also appeared to be far higher than the approvals she remembered giving. She ordered an inquiry. Official sources said that this is what Varma found:

• Rulebook was thrown out of the window to dole out EGS work

• In a number of cases, her signature was forged to get the work approved

• Musters were manipulated: some were blank but signed and endorsed by local agriculture officers; others bore signatures in English of illiterate labourers; names of the dead too appeared in some

• All had been ‘‘paid’’ EGS money. Total loss to the exchequer: Rs 9.1 crore

As per norms, two sets of approvals are needed to start EGS work. The first is a technical sanction, which a particular department, say agriculture, sends to the district administration, okaying EGS work—like building a bund— at a particular site. Only after the district collector sees the technical sanction, can an administrative approval be given.

In Solapur, administrative approvals bore dates prior to the dates of technical sanction.

With the inquiry on, the district administration has stopped 1,034 EGS works underway in the drought-prone district.

Taking serious note of this, the district administration filed a case of forgery and misappropriation against a clerk from EGS branch Manoj Nimbalkar, agriculture superintendent Devanand Sutivirayya and agriculture assistant Subhash Durape at Mangalvedha police station on July 27.

A day later, a separate complaint was filed against Nimbalkar, agriculture supervisor P R Kakade and agriculture assistant S R Sartape at South Solapur police station. Nimbalkar was suspended on July 31.

Officials say this could just be the tip of an iceberg. As the probe ordered by Varma is still in progress, more startling findings are expected. Meanwhile, several officers from the Agriculture department have threatened to quit if the probe is not stopped.

So far the probe has revealed a number of discrepancies in awarding EGS work sanction:

• In South Solapur taluka, administrative approvals were received for 141 compartment bunding works and 69 nala bunding works on a single day on October 28, 2004

• In Akkalkot taluka, 86 compartment bunding works were sanctioned in one day

• In Barshi taluka, technical sanctions and administrative approvals for three farm pond works were given on June 27, 2004

• Same story in other talukas. At Malgalvedha, date of submission of estimates to EGS branch of the district collectorate was shown as June 27, 2004; administrative approval shown as being given the same day

• In Karmala taluka, administrative approval was received on March 14, 2005 but technical sanction, which should have been given earlier, was given on April 19, 2005.

2 days after Manisha Varma complained, she was shifted, then told stay put

• PUNE: Two days after District Collector Manisha Varma lodged a police complaint about the EGS fraud, she was transferred to Pune’s Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA). Varma was busy in flood relief work in Pandharpur when the marching orders came. A day later, the state govt stayed it. Divisional Commissioner Prabhakar Karandikar declined comment on why Varma—she had alerted him about the fraud—was transferred and then stopped from leaving. He, however, said that people involved in siphoning money would be brought to book. Varma had also brought the fraud to the notice of CM Vilasrao Deshmukh, Solapur district Guardian Minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil and EGS Minister Harshavardhan Patil.