Ranchi: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in Jharkhand is proving a scheme that guarantees losing lives of those who are involved deep into it trying to expose corruption.

Rampant corruption and the officials’ indifference to put in place an effective monitoring mechanism of the scheme have made NREGA deadly in Jharkhand.
 
After Lalit Mehta, a social activist who allegedly fell prey to nefarious officials-contractors nexus in Palamu, it was Tapas Soren, a tribal of a non-descript village Birakhap under Churchu block of Hazaribag district, who immolated himself on Wednesday at Charhi chowk on NH just to highlight the plight of the beneficiaries under the NREGA.
 
Dejected at denial of the fund earmarked for digging of a well after payment of a hefty sum in bribe, Tapas attempted self-immolation as he had no money to pay for the wages to the people roped in for the purpose.
 
With more than 60 per cent burn injuries, Tapas was fighting life at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) at Ranchi.
 
Incidents involving Lalit and Tapas are just the classic examples of  the state of affairs prevailing in Jharkhand in execution of NREGA schemes.
 
A few weeks ago, another NREGA activist and CPI cadre Kameshwar Yadav was killed after he tried to expose some white-collared people involved in various schemes of NREGA in Giridih district.
 
One Turia Devi committed suicide a couple of months back in Bundu area of Ranchi after she was denied wages as per the provisions of the Act.
 
While the state has been rattled with deaths related to NREGA schemes, officials hardly show any concern over the issue.
 
The state government dismisses its responsibility with a customary exercise of ordering probes, which often leads to nowhere. The casual approach in dealing with the issues related to NREGA saw a series of protest in Ranchi spearheaded by prominent social activist of the country like Swami Agnivesh, Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy and others.
 
Narrating his woes Tapas said a Panchayat Sevak, Braj Kishor Mahto, had taken Rs 32,000 from his bank account with United Bank of India, Charhi branch, on May 31 with an assurance to provide the total sum of Rs 69,000, the cost of well-digging project.
 
“Mahto had taken the amount claiming it used to pay the commission to BDO Manmohan Prasad and other formalities for the release of the project fund. However, I received not a single penny, even though the labourers I had engaged almost finished the project,” Tapas  said.
 
While the BDO trashed the charges as baseless, Deputy Commissioner of Hazaribag Vinay Kumar Chaube said that an inquiry had been set up under the supervision of Additional Collector Baldev Raj.
 
“Action will be taken against the guilty after the probe report comes to me,” Chaube said.