By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has meticulously built a narrative against corruption in India to project political parties in opposition and their leaders corrupt and to make himself appear free of blemishes. However, his narrative is only half of the truth, since all the opposition leaders are not corrupt on the one hand, and there are financial irregularities and corruption galore on the other under his premiership.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has continuously flagged financial irregularities and corruption not only in the Central government led by PM Narendra Modi but alsoin the BJP led governments in the states. Financial irregularities and corruptions are recorded in many CAG reports under Modi rule since 2014, many of which are also recorded right under his nose in many Prime Minister Schemes.
However, as recent as August 21, PM Modi has said, “The citizens of the country cannot forget the days before 2014 where there were rampant scams and corruption.” Earlier, he had labelled the opposition alliance a group of corrupt threatening action against them.
Nevertheless, irrefutable evidences of financial irregularities and corruption are surfacing against his government, and BJP ruled states, and in many of the cases his friends, especially Gautam Adani, are chief beneficiaries. The entire BJP is in denial mode and they have been criticizing those and terming them false, even the CAG, who are pointing out their financial irregularities and corruption while protecting their own corrupt people.
Only few months ago in April, BJP had released “Congress file”, a video presentation alleging the Congress of looting Rs48.20 trillion, which also included coal scam of 1.86 lakh crore in their “70 years of Congress rule” which was an utter lie, since by that time Congress has ruled the country only about 54 years even after including 223 days of PM Chandrashekhar led government which was Congress supported.
The auction-based regime for coal was introduced in 2014 for private sector plants, and then again in 2020, commercial coal mining by private sector was opened. However, CAG had flagged, in respect to coal auctions in 2015, certain irregularities. Union Ministry of Coal changed rules later to benefit some of the companies. The change of rule in 2021 benefited PM Modi’s friend Gautam Adani’s group, as the CAG report reveals if it is read in the light of the Hindenburg research that brought into light that shell companies were used for the auctions. However, but Union Finance Ministry said that they had no information about the shell companies of Adani.
Shouting at other political parties and their leaders and setting the central investigating agencies like CBI, ED, and Income Tax against them to hunt, cannot make PM Modi clean of the allegation of irregularities and corruption to benefit not only his friends but also him directly.
The latest example is recorded in the latest report of the CAG tabled in the Parliament of India in the monsoon session 2023. It has pointed out that funds for pension schemes were diverted for publicity of other schemes. Such irregularities directly benefited PM Modi, since the money were spent for his personalized publicity through the schemes such as PM Awaas Yojna – Gramin (PMAY-G) and Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojna (DDU-GKY), which the pension fund was not meant for.CAG delved into diversion of funds from National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) under Union Ministry of Rural Development, and pointed out diversion from, including old age pension, schemes.
Since there seems to be no accountability of anyone in the Central government, the CAG has recently called for increased transparency and accountability while pointing out irregularities that points out corruption in three significant projects.
Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (PMJAY) is one of them right under his nose, in which 3,446 dead persons (as shown in the schemes database) were disbursed Rs6.97 crore rupees. Other financial irregularities were also pointed out by the CAG. The audit covered the period between 2018 and 2021. There was large scale corruption in the scheme, in which in 2.25 lakh cases, the date of surgery was shown done later than the date of discharge from the hospitals. Even several unique ids were issued to beneficiaries on same address or telephone numbers used for OTPs. One can just imagine the level of corruption and the audacity of the corrupts.
CAG highlighted concerns surrounding the Dwarka Express project’s construction cost. Originally approved at only Rs18.20 crore per kilometre, the project’s cost skyrocketed to an astounding Rs 250 crore per kilometre. There is absence of detailed project report and the decisions were questionable.
Union Ministry of Tourism has been implementing Swadesh Darshan Scheme but the CAG report covering the period 2015 to March 2022 found that the funds were sanctioned by the ministry without obtaining approval from the Cabinet and implemented without conducting any feasibility study.
In another report tabled in the monsoon session of the parliament, CAG flagged poor monitoring, ineligible subsidy payments by Tea Board indicating corruption and fraud. The report covers the period between 2016-17 and 2020-21.
Corruption even seems to be institutionalized, as CAG found in its report on the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highway Toll Operations of National Highways Authorities of India (NHAI). NHAI Southern India was found to have collect Rs 132.05 crore in violation of toll plaza rules. CAG has also reported irregularities in other highway projects such as in the Implementation of Bharamala Pariyojana Phase I (BPP-I).
“Instances of irregularities in award of projects by implementing agencies were observed in clear violation of the prescribed processes of tendering, viz., successful bidder not fulfilling tender condition or bidder selected on the basis of falsified documents, award of works without there being approved detailed project reports or based on faulty detailed project report,” it said.
Unsanctioned expenditures have been reported by CAG in the Ministry of Railways. In the financial year (FY) 2021-22 the ministry had unsanctioned expenditure of Rs 23,885.47 crore, encompassing 1,937 cases. In FY 2020-21 unsanctioned expenditure of Rs 8,127.97 crore was incurred by Indian Railways in 2,775 cases. It shows the rampant financial irregularities and corruption in Railways.
CAG has pointed out as many as seven scams in its reports submitted in the monsoon session alone of the parliament of India. The CAG reports of the entire period under PM Modi would present a long story of financial irregularities and corruption since 2014, irrespective of the claim of PM Modi and BJP that they are clean and only the opposition leaders and the political parties are a ‘pack of corrupts’. (IPA Service)
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