People's Democracy(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) |
Vol. XXXVII
No. 21 May 26, 2013 |
ANDHRA
PRADESH
CPI(M)
Exposes Corruption in
Coffee
Ch
Narsinga Rao
HOW corruption at
all levels in the
Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh is ruining the lives of the
most downtrodden
sections of the people is evident from the happenings in the
tribal areas of
Paderu and Araku
areas in
Maybe with a good
intention, the state and
central governments encouraged the tribals to go for coffee,
black pepper and
silver oak plantations promising them good income as there
was good demand for
coffee. Already coffee crop is grown extensively in
The AP Forest
Development Corporation (APFDC)
assured the tribals that they will earn Rs 38,500 per acre
after a wait of four
years if they
grow coffee i.e. nearly Rs
10,000 per acre per annum. It would result in improving the
all round economic
status of the tribals.
If the scheme is
implemented in its true spirit, the results would have been
undoubtedly beneficial
to the tribals. But the majority of the funds allotted for
the scheme have been
grabbed by the corrupt officials and the greedy political
leaders, as was
revealed in the fact-finding investigation taken up by the
CPI(M) and Girijana
Sangham. The officials and political leaders fattened
themselves leaving the
tribals in hunger and destitution.
As per this scheme,
the government identified 55,276
tribal beneficiaries in 190 panchayats. A fund of Rs 349
crore has been
allocated to be spent through MGNREGA for a period of eight
years from 2008-09
to 2016-17. This amount would be spent under the aegis of
Integrated Tribal
Development Agency (ITDA) and Coffee Board. As part of the
scheme the tribals
planted coffee saplings and silver oak saplings. In order to
assist the tribals
financially during the period of four year wait, the scheme
provided that the
tribal farmer must be paid an amount of Rs 22,264 per acre
in the first year, Rs
2245 in the second year, Rs 1850 in the third year and Rs
1918 in the fourth
year.
It is here the
corrupt officials and politicians
jumped into fray and siphoned off vast sums meant for the
poor tribals.
Officially, the government declared that it would spend Rs
287 crores from
MGNREGA and Rs 62 crore from Coffee Board for the benefit of
1,35,000 tribal
farmers under the scheme.
It was further
stated that from 2008-09 to 2011-12, a sum of Rs 45.45 crore was
paid to 30,044 coffee
growers and Rs 9.62 crore was paid to silver oak growers.
The Girijana
Sangham and CPI(M) undertook
fact-finding exercise in the agency areas to check the
government claims. Five
fact-finding teams consisting of lawyers, engineers and
other intellectuals
toured the agency area to check the facts. To our utter
dismay it was found
that all the above figures quoted by the government were
fictitious and the
tribals were cheated to the core. Fictitious vouchers were
prepared and amounts
were drawn from the banks under false names. There is a
requirement that in all
the villages, resolutions must be passed to identify the
beneficiaries and this
list of beneficiaries must be displayed prominently at the
respective panchayat
office. What we found was that even these resolutions were
bogus. In many
places it was found that bogus vouchers and scroll register
of payments and
also the bogus thumb impressions were placed and amounts
were appropriated.
For example in a
village Maggam Veedhi in
Peddabailu mandal, the members decided to draw Rs 41,334
through a resolution.
But the officials drew Rs 1,24,376 here. Not only that,
records show that with
a signature of the Mandal Development Officer another sum of
Rs 1,59,248 was
drawn here. It was found in our survey that the officials
distributed very few
of these amounts to the beneficiaries. There are no vouchers
for the entire
amount. Even on the vouches available, there are no details
of the beneficiaries.
The thumb impressions are not matching with those of the
persons mentioned in
the vouchers.
CPI(M) state
secretary and Polit Bureau member B
V Raghavulu visited the agency area and met with the
affected tribals. After
seeing the scale of corruption that denied relief to
tribals, he wrote a letter
to the state government warning that if the justice is not
meted out to the
innocent tribals, government officials will be held
responsible for any further
unrest in the tribal area. All this forced the
state government to order an official enquiry with an
assurance to do
justice to the tribals.
After encouraging
the tribals to shift to coffee
and other cash crops, the government’s failure in providing
minimum relief to
the tribals in form of payments for the four year waiting
period has severely
impacted the tribals. They have have lost their traditional
podu agriculture
and are finding
difficult to procure millets like jowar,maize etc for their
daily consumption.
On top of this severe drought like situation is prevalent in
the area. AP
Girijana Sangham and CPI(M) have organized agitational
programmes seeking
relief for the tribals in agency areas of