Lokayukta net for misuse of ICDS funds

Mangalore Today / PTI

Bangalore, Mar 9,2012: Lokayukta sleuths today conducted simulataneous searches on the offices and residences of three senior officials of Women and Child Directorate in Karnataka in connection with allegations of misappropriation of funds under the Integrated Child Development Scheme, police said.

The raids were conducted at the office and residential premises of Shamla Iqbal, former Director, Usha Patwari, Joint Director, Muniraju, Assistant Director, and offices of the Women and Child Development Department in 11 different places in Bangalore, Mysore Tumkur, Raichur and Bidar districts.

 

Besides, premises of Cristy Fried Gram Industries and anganwadi centers were also raided.

A case had been registered against the officials under section 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

It was alleged that the officials had "misused" the funds amounting to Rs 600 crore per annum for the scheme meant for providing nutritional supplement to children, adolescent girls, preganant women and lactating mothers, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Lokayukta Satyanarayana Rao told reporters here.

During the seach conducted at the residence of Shamla Iqbal here, documents, property and valuables including 900 grams of gold, diamonds worth about Rs four lakh, about Rs one lakh worth platinum jewellery, bank deposits of Rs 65 lakh, a commercial complex at Church Street here, a house purchased for 60 lakh at HAL 3rd stage and a site in Arkavathy Layout, nine bank accounts (under scrutiny) were seized.

Valuables including 655 grams of gold, Rs 4.90 lakh cash, 10 kilograms of silver and 30 bank accounts (under scrutiny) were seized from the residence of Usha Patwari.

During the search conducted at Muniraju’s residence here, 379 grams of gold, 750 grams of silver, Rs 1.70 lakh cash and documents pertaining to 50x80 site and a house in Mysore, another site in Vijayanagar sold last year for Rs 22 lakh, 15 acres in Malur in Kolar district were seized.

The Lokayukta police seized incriminating documents regarding tender for supply of food, a CPU and three computers having documents relating to trasactions conducted under the ICDS programme from the office of the Directorate of Women & Child Development, Bangalore.

MoU document with Government of Karnataka regarding nutritional requirements under the ICDS scheme and two hard discs regarding financial transaction were confiscated from the office of Chrsity Fried Grams Industry (CFGI) here.

Besides these, 2000 bags of nutritional food packets and incriminating documents for Agsarahalli godown in Nelamangala taluk and 100 bags of nutritional food packets supplied by CFGI and incriminating documents CFTRI reports and audit reports were confiscated from the Mahila Supplementary Production Centres’ (MSPC) office in the same village.

A total of 1600 supplimentary nutritional product boxes were also seized from MSPC’s offices in Tumkur, Mysore, Raichur and Bidar.

Responding to a query, Rao said the quality of these nutritional and supplimentary food packets was "sub standard".

He said the total value of the property and valuables seized from the offices and residences of these officials was yet to be ascertained.