Raghuvansh charges Nitish govt for irregularities in BPL list

New Delhi, Apr 13 (UNI) Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh today strongly criticised the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar for 'rampant irregularities' in the BPL list and said that it has also failed in proper implemention of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme and Indira Awas Yojna.

Addressing mediapersons after performance review meeting of the Council of Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) here, Dr Singh said that the Nitish Kumar Government had cancelled the BPL list based on the 2002 survey and formulated a fresh list in which even ministers, bureaucrats and senior government officials figure, resulting in large scale resenment among the people.

''Poor people have been left out of the list while ministers like Baidnath Mahto, officers and Collectors' figure in the BPL list.

Many people have protested against it, resulting in physical violence. The state government has caused a big fraud in the BPL list as all influential people have been included in the list and poor have been left out while Nitish Kumar blames the central government,'' Dr Singh said.

He demanded a judicial inquiry into the fraud and said that transparency be brought into the list by taking the BPL list before the Gram Sabhas and inquiry be conducted about any complaint of discrepency.

Pointing out that he has written more than 150 letters to the state government over the poor implemenation of NREGA, IAY and irregularities in BPL list, Dr Singh said that the state government has not yet replied to any of them. ''They do not have the capability to reply those letters,'' he charged and added that there were reports that no cell has been constituted by the state government for implementation of suggestions contained in his letters.

He said that till now eight states have published the BPL lists Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Though discrepenies have been reported in BPL lists in many states, but unlike Bihar, they are taking steps to rectify them, he noted.

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