Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan gave detailed assertion over the problem.

Bhopal:

The Madhya Pradesh Meeting was adjourned for the day on Wednesday following protests by the Opposition over an NDTV report on irregularities within the implementation of a supplementary vitamin scheme for schoolchildren. Earlier this month, NDTV, which accessed a confidential report by the state’s personal auditor, reported eye-popping ranges of corruption – from ration transport vans that had been discovered to be bikes to wild exaggeration of the variety of beneficiaries –  within the bold free meals scheme that was aimed to deal with the problem of malnourishment of youngsters.

The Home was earlier adjourned twice throughout Query Hour as a result of protests over the problem.

Originally of the Query Hour, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan sought permission from Speaker Girish Gautam to make an in depth assertion on the problem to clear the Opposition’s “confusion” over it. The Speaker gave permission to Mr Chouhan to make the assertion after the Query Hour.

Chief of Opposition Dr Govind Singh of the Congress, nevertheless, raised objection saying that about 15 adjournment motions had been submitted on this situation and these must be mentioned earlier than the Chief Minister was allowed to make his assertion. Nevertheless, the Speaker declined to concede to the Opposition demand.

After Query Hour when the Chief Minister rose to talk over the problem, a large protest erupted with the Opposition demanding they be allowed to talk first. Congress MLA’s jumped into the nicely of the Home, raised slogans towards the Chief Minister and sang bhajans for not being allowed to talk first by means of the demanded adjournment movement.

Mr Chouhan, in the meantime, continued to learn his assertion regardless of noisy protests by opposition MLAs.

The Chief Minister denied irregularities in implementation of the scheme and stated the Audior Normal’s audit report on the programme was interim in nature and that the variety of a car talked about in it was not registered on the transport division’s “Vahan” portal.

“The audit was performed between 2018 and 2021 and the draft report was despatched to the state authorities by the Accountant Normal on August 12, 2022. But it surely was only a draft report and never the ultimate report. The draft report pertains to 2018 to 2021, which incorporates 15 months of Congress authorities too. We’re dedicated to focussed probe on all factors of the report, no matter which authorities was in energy within the state,” he stated.

“Our earlier authorities had carried out baseline survey of adolescent women (aged between 11 and 14 years) in 2018 and despatched the report back to the centre, as per which the full variety of such out of faculty women was 2.52 lakh (which incorporates these women additionally whose identify is enrolled at school, however they are not truly going to high school). The variety of such woman beneficiaries below the scheme from 2018 to 2021 was 5.51 lakh solely. The 36 lakh determine talked about within the draft report pertains to whole adolescent women and never out of faculty adolescent women (OOSAGs),” he added.

“In March 2018, the work of manufacturing THR was taken away from personal firms and handed over to ladies self-help teams (SHGs) by our authorities, however the subsequent Congress authorities gave it to MP State Agro Industries Improvement Company Restricted in November 2019, ensuing within the MP Agro taking all THR vegetation in its management in February 2020. This finally resulted within the goal of the mafia being saved out of THR system, truly being misplaced. However on return to energy in March 2020, our authorities once more gave again complete THR work to ladies self-help teams with impact from September 2021. As a substitute of 200 personal contractors, the work has now been given to over 2000 ladies SHGs, whose collective turnover is round Rs 60 crores,” the Chief Minister maintained.

On the problem of doubtful car challans talked about within the report, the Chief Minister stated, out of the 81 car challans, 31 had been issued through the Congress rule.

“Already motion has been initiated towards 104 officers discovered chargeable for irregularities, together with suspension of twenty-two officers and dismissal of six others from service. Pension of three officers has been withheld, increments of two officers withheld and a departmental enquiry is underway towards 40 officers,” he stated

Reacting to the Chief Minister’s assertion, Congress MLA Jitu Patwari demanded Chief Minister’s resignation and a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged rip-off.

“Folks accused for the rip-off are giving statements in the home, if Congress leaders are accountable they need to be punished however atleast talk about first,” he stated.

The confidential 36-page report by the Madhya Pradesh Accountant Normal, accessed completely by NDTV, had discovered large-scale fraud, irregularities within the identification of beneficiaries, manufacturing, distribution and high quality management of the bold free meals scheme for schoolchildren.

Among the extra egregious findings of the report had been primarily based on an examination of round 24 per cent of beneficiaries of the Take House Ration (THR) scheme for 2021, a programme tasked with offering much-needed nourishment to 49.58 lakh registered youngsters and ladies.