At least 11 of those fake cards have been identified, with photos of Bollywood actors
Bollywood star Deepika Padukone works as a migrant worker in a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone district, or at least the MNREGA job cards with her photograph would have you believe.
The fake MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Law) cards issued in the name of Sonu Shantilal, Manoj Dubey and nearly a dozen other villagers, but featuring glamorous photographs of Ms. Padukone and at least 10 other movie stars and celebrities, have been circulating and demanding wages from the village of Peeparkheda Naka in the Jhirnia panchayat.
District officials believe that thousands of rupees have been claimed on these bogus cards as wages for activities that were never carried out in the first place; for example, according to the cards, Sonu Shantilal was paid to build a sewer near his village.
Other cards have been paid for digging ponds and repairing canals. A sum of Rs 30,000 has been withdrawn every month against a card in the name of Mr. Dubey.
However, Shantilal and others whose names are on these fake cards say they have no idea how this happened. According to Shantilal and Dubey, neither has claimed a single day of work. Mr. Dubey, in fact, claims 50 acres of farmland and says he was never issued a MNREGA job card.
“I don’t know how this card was made. They replaced my wife’s photo with Deepika,” Sonu Shantilal said, claiming that the panchayat secretary and the employment assistant were involved in the commission of this fraud.
The executive director of the panchayat district ordered an investigation into how these cards were printed and how wages were published. Action will be taken against the culprits, he declared.
“I received information on 11 job cards with photos of celebrities. Large amounts of money have been withdrawn in the last few days and candidate lists filled. We will find out how the job cards were issued and how these photos were taken. against whoever is found guilty in the investigation, “said Gaurav Banal.
This is the same district panchayat – Jhirnia – that was praised for having paid 100 percent of the salaries assigned for employment under the MNREGA scheme.
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