Swachh toilets worth Rs 540 crore go 'missing' in Madhya Pradesh: Report

More than 4.5 lakh 'paper toilets' that had to be built in Madhya Pradesh have gone 'missing', according to a Times of India report. The Rs 540 crore worth 'Swachh toilets' initiative has photographic proof and geo-map locations submitted to the authorities but the toilets cannot be found, according to the report.

“In 2012, a baseline survey was conducted and 62 lakh above-poverty-line households without toilets were identified in the state. On Oct. 2, 2018, construction of all these toilets was complete. But to ensure that these toilets are actually present and 100% complete, we conducted a survey and physical verification using 21,000 volunteers. During this survey, around 4.5 lakh toilets were found to be missing,” deputy director of Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) Madhya Pradesh, Ajit Tiwari, told TOI.

The issue came to light when villagers in Betul's tribal Lakkadjam panchayat put forth the issue and complained to officials, who called for immediate action.

“A detailed probe was conducted in Lakkadjam panchayat, and the complaints were found to be true. For these toilets and other similar anomalies, a recovery of Rs 7 lakh was imposed on the accused. They appealed against the recovery order, but the penalty was upheld. Once recovery is done, we will initiate action under IPC. I have ordered investigation of all the other work done in the panchayat,” chief executive officer (CEO) of Betul panchayat ML Tyagi told TOI.

According to the report, the privies were supposed to be built between 2012 and October 2018. The officials managed to siphon off the funds allocated for the project by submitting photographs of toilets that were built elsewhere.

“There were two processes of making payments. Panchayats were provided money upon completion of toilets in households, or the government transferred Rs 12,000 to beneficiaries’ accounts once they built the toilets. In both cases, it is clear where the money went. So, people responsible for the missing toilets will have to build them for real, or face the music. The sole objective is to ensure 100% completion of the target identified in 2012,” Tiwari said.

Regarding the fake GPS tags of the Swacch toilets, Tiwari told TOI that the GPS was precise up to six metres and most likely the pictures of toilets within the six-metre range were uploaded in the name of beneficiaries or pictures of constructions before 2012 were uploaded.

When TOI enquired about the second level of probing, Tiwari said, "It is being conducted by district-level officers. We hope it will be complete in a couple of months. Then, we will have a cleaner picture of the numbers of Swachh mission toilets. Our objective is to ensure that the toilets or assets built by the government are actually present.”

He added that the investigated data would be posted in the public domain so that the beneficiaries can check for any anomalies.