"Under the ruling BJP government, rampant corruption is taking place in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme and now it has crossed all limits as payments were withdrawn even in the name of dead persons," Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, Ajay Singh, alleged in a statement yesterday.
The senior Congress leader demanded that Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh should send a probe team to Madhya Pradesh to launch an inquiry in this regard.
He claimed that in Jabalpur and Umaria divisions, MNREGA payments were made even to those persons who passed away five years back at the cost of real beneficiaries.
Blaming the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for the mess in MNREGA, Ajay Singh said that because of corruption, the targeted beneficiaries were not getting payment under the scheme since last nine months.
Efforts to contact Madhya Pradesh Rural Development Minister Gopal Bhargava on the issue proved futile as he did not respond to the calls made on his cellphone.