Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Misleading Information with Statistical Jugglery about Biju Pucca Ghara Yojana

Misleading Information with Statistical Jugglery about Biju Pucca Yojana of Govt. of Odisha

On the eve of Independence Day, the State Govt. has released an advertisement to different news papers (published on 15.8.15) highlighting their  success and achievement  in the state. One of the biggest achievements claimed by the State Government is the construction of 5.7 lakh houses under Biju Pucca Yojana which was launched from October, 2014.  It is  not clear from this  claim  that  whether  5.7 lakh  houses  have been completed or  sanctioned  or  under  construction. Few days back on 21.5.15, there was also news   in different leading news paper that 3 lakh houses have been constructed with reference to review meeting by Chief Minister on 20.5.15 regarding progress of Rural Housing Scheme.

 Having  gone through the news about  construction of 3 lakh  houses  under  Biju Pucca Ghara Yojana and out of curiosity  to know  about the authenticity of the statistics  given by Govt., I  filed  an RTI Application dated 31.5.15  to the Dept. of  Panchayat Raj seeking  the following information

a. Total fund sanctioned under Biju Pucca Ghara Yojana by the State Govt and fund released to different districts and amount of Utilization Certification submitted by different districts,
b. Total no. of Houses completed and on-going in different districts,
c. Copy of the proceedings of the review meeting of PD, DRDAs conducted by Chief Minister in May 2015.

In response to RTI Application, the PIO supplied the information on dated 25.7.15 which is as follows.

A.  Total fund sanctioned to different districts for the year 2014-15 is 330.10 crores rupees. The UC has been submitted against utilisation of only 2, 36, 92,000 (Two crores thirty six thousand and ninety two thousand only)  by June 2015. Not single money has been sanctioned under BPGY to any district for the year 2015-16.

B.  On question about  number of house  completed  and  on-going in different district,  the  PIO  without providing the information  advised me  to  visit the website  www.iay.nic.in uder  “AWAASSOFT Reports”.  I browsed this website time and again, but could not get single information about Biju Puca Ghara Yojana.  When it was clicked, I noticed only the information about Indira Awas Yojana.  It is proved  that  as the  information about  completion of  the houses under BPGY  is not available  with Dept. of Panchayat Raj, the PIO     wrote  me  to search the website with malafide intention  to cheat me.

C. The PIO provided the copy of the proceedings of the review meeting held on 20.5.15 at 5.30 PM.

The effort to extract information and to expose trick of deception adopted by Odisha  bureaucracy highlighting the information which are basically false does not end here. I again browsed the website of Panchayat Raj Dept.  to find out the information about BPGY. I got the information uploaded upto January 2015. Under the head “District-wise Physical Progress upto the Month of January’15 “, it was  found that  total number of 71234  houses  under BPGY were under construction. It means there is no completion of  a single  house under the said scheme  in the state  for  the year 2014-15.

So,  it  is concluded  that  the information  about  construction of 5.7 lakh  houses  means  it is under construction and on-going  not completion. Though one year has been completed since launching of the scheme, not a single house has been completed. So it cannot be said as big achievement which has been highlighted in the advertisement published in news paper  on 15.8.15.

The people of Odisha should always remain conscious to examine   whether the information disseminated by Nabin Patnaik Govt. is correct and free from any statistical jugglery.

Let us be sensitised  what is Biju Pucca Ghara Yojana.

Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana is a State plan scheme and is designed to provide new houses to the deserving and genuinely poor rural households not having any pucca house. Objective of the scheme is to convert all kutcha houses into pucca house in rural areas of the state in a fixed time frame in a mission mode approach. A pucca house means that it should be able to withstand normal wear & tear due to usage and natural forces including climatic conditions. This started being implemented full-fledgedly  from October 2014.

Selection of beneficiaries will be done from the list through lottery conducted in a fair and transparent manner. Additional detaited procedure for conduct of lottery may be cornmunicated by Panchayati Raj Department separately. The tottery will be conducted at GP Headquarters. lf for some reason, the lottery cannot be conducted at the GP Headquarters, then it can be conducted at Block Headquarters by the BDO in presence of_E_qp, Assistant Engineer and ABDO/ any Extension officer. For conducting lottery at GP Headquarters, BDO will depute a three member team of officers who will be responsible for conducting it in a fair and transparent manner. The resutt of the tottery will be declared on the same day by the BDO and the final list will be displayed at block and GP offices. Thereafter BDO will issue work order from the selected list.

BPGY (special): The selection. of beneficiaries for BPGY {Special) will be done by a District level Committee (DLC) consisting of the following members:
  1. District Collector                                   Chairman
  2. Hon'ble MPs of District                         Member
  3. Hon'ble MLAs of the District                 Member
  4. President Zilla Parishad                       Member
  5. PD,DRDA-cum-EO , ZP                       Member Convener


i. The District level Committee will approve the list after which it will be communicated to the BDOs by the District Collector.
 ii. ln case District level Committee fails to approve the list within timeline fixed, the District Collector will approve the same and communicate to the BDOs.
 iii. The final list will be published at the concerned Gram Panchayat/Block headquarters and will also be made available at DRDA website for information of public.
 iv. BDOs will issue work orders from the approved list.

Pradip Pradhan, M-9937843482
Date- 16.8.15 

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