Likewise, Buchkun Mandal and Hari Nanda Mandal of the same VDC died several years ago, but their names are also in the VDC list of elderly citizens receiving social security allowance.
According to locals, more than 100 such spurious names are in the social security allowance list for the VDC, which is the ancestral village of Vice-president Pramanandha Jha.
Locals alleged that VDC Secretary Mahendra Chaudhary, in collusion with technical assistant Yasodhanandha Bhandari, has been embezzling from the social security allowance budget in the name of deceased locals since several years back.
Bishnu Dev Mandal, a local resident, said even though the social security allowance is released for around 324 locals, only 213 people receive it. The name list of the target groups has not been updated for the last eight months.
Similarly, Saptari District Development Committee (DDC) releases a nutrition allowance for 249 dalit children, but VDC Secretary Chaudhary distributes the allowance to only 52, said Mandal.
Likewise, locals accuse Chaudhary of embezzling funds allocated for village development since the last five years.
“Secretary Chaudhary had said that the VDC invested around Rs. 1.7 million for electrification in the village,” said a local. However, at the electricity inauguration function some months ago, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) said all expenses for installing electricity in the village were borne by NEA.
“Chaudhary has been working as VDC secretary for the last five years. But we have hardly ever seen him at the VDC office all these years,” said Bijay Mandal, another local.
Two days ago, Chaudhary was in the village with an integrated citizenship distribution team. And he was taken hostage by locals for 24 hours. “The team had arrived here for two days. On the last day, we took Chaudhary under control,” said Santosh Singh, yet another local.
Chaudhary was later released in the presence of Chief District Officer Hari Raj Panta.
The locals have filed a complaint against Chaudhary at the District Administration Office.
According to Singh, Chaudhary and technical assistant Yasodhanandha Bhandari embezzled Rs 884,750 allocated for building a sub-health post in the village in fiscal year 2006-2007. Likewise, they also accused Chaudhary of embezzling Rs 569,750 allocated for erecting electric poles in the same fiscal year.
Chief District Officer Panta said Chaudhary was arrested and freed on bail. Panta said a corruption case has already been filed against him.
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