Assam: PMAY Funds Embezzlement, Locals Appeal DC South Salmara For Intervention

The misappropriation of funds that have been granted under the Prime Minister Awas Yojana in the South Salmara district has irked the local people.

According to sources, the Block Development Officer (BDO) who had granted permission to build houses for the people there under the PMAY the scheme, the listed beneficiaries under the jurisdiction of three Gaon Panchayats namely, South Salmara, Baladoba, and Samoltari have not received any housing facilities till now under the central government's said scheme.

What's more shocking is the fact that, almost 90% of the villagers who were residing under these three gaon panchayats have lost their homes and land owing to river erosions a few years back.

Since then, the villagers have been living in neighboring Meghalaya and no arrangements have been made so far in order to help them return to their native place.

Sources added that, these helpless people who have voting rights in the state of Assam are spending their days in Meghalaya as refugees.

Following protests and controversies, the local Panchayat authorities and the Block Development Office who had earlier allotted houses to these people under the PMAY, are now building temporary settlements in a field which is adjacent to the spot where river erosion is common.

According to some of the bereaved beneficiaries for whom houses were allotted, they said that there is under table settlement between the Gaon Panchayat officials and the BDO and are only trying to build these houses in order to embezzle huge sums of money allotted under the scheme.

A local resident and one of the beneficiaries told the media, "How could we live in these houses? They (the authorities) have not paid heed to our prayers."

The irked beneficiaries have now demanded the intervention of the South Salmara Deputy Commissioner on the entire matter and provide them land inside Assam.

"We are Indians and residents of Assam, but we have no land now as we lost our land and everything that we have to river erosion. We want to appeal to the Deputy Commissioner to take a step to grant us land so that we can return to our homes at the earliest," another beneficiary added.