The division bench of Patna High Court has entrusted a multi-crore scam in Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) to CBI.

The ICDS case relates to the fraud perpetrated in the name of providing nutritional and pre-school educational support to economically, physically and socially vulnerable children under the age of 6 years and lactating and pregnant mothers. According to the report of Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG ), the beneficiaries were not getting the assistance under the scheme and the money was being siphoned off.

The CAG report also revealed other irregularities under the ICDS scheme. For instance,

- well-known US NGO CARE supplied nutritious food. But these never reached the beneficiaries.

-the food provided under the scheme was also found being sold in the open market.

- the scamsters produced the bill and voucher for transportation but the material never reached its destination

- The materials supplied by UNICEF were not used and the entire amount was misappropriated. In this case too, fake bills were prepared for the supply of ready-to-eat food and its transportation.

-The state government, instead of taking any action on the recommendations of CAG, slept over it.

Based on the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), social activist, Sunit Kumar Yadav moved a petition before the Patna High Court.

According to a rough estimate, more than Rs 200 crore is involved in this scam.

The Bihar government has finalised a new scheme for releasing minors and women languishing in different jails of Bihar. Under this new scheme, thousands of women and minors will be released on 26th January. Most of them are in jail due to want of any bailer for many years.

As per the proposal, a team of junior advocates and law students will visit various jails where it will study custody warrants and speak to child and female prisoners to identify the ones who can qualify as beneficiaries of the scheme. The team will then initiate expeditious action to secure their early release.

To facilitate the early release of such prisoners, the Government is considering special initiatives on the legal front. These include the setting up of special courts, creating conditions for referring such cases to Lok Adalats and invoking the provision for compounding of offences.

The first phase of the scheme is to be taken up as a pilot project covering five prisons of different categories located in the vicinity of the state capital. These have been identified as the Beur Model Jail (Patna), Camp Divisional Jail (Phulwarisharif), Divisional Jail (Hajipur), Sub-Jail (Patna City) and Sub-Jail (Danapur).

The entire expenditure is to be borne by UNICEF, which has agreed to sponsor the scheme as it addresses the welfare of women and children. A formal proposal has been sent to the Home Department for seeking its approval.

As against a total capacity of 22,000, there are over 50,000 Undertrials and prisoners lodged in the jails of (pre-division) Bihar. In addition, the number of undertrials is growing at the rate of about 5,000 per year..

Little Flower Leprosy Hospital at Sunderpur near Raxaul on the Bihar- Nepal border founded by Christ Das is a true embodiment of service to Lord Christ. Leprosy patients are not only cured here but they get gainful employment here in a number of employment generating schemes launched by the centre where former lepers and their children lead a self -reliant and dignified life.

Full Story...

India is now swamped with the second largest number of HIV- infected people. Number of HIV positive cases are rising in Bihar also so much so that it has risen up to more than 2,000 in the state. The no. of full-blown AIDS cases detected so far is more than 31.

Although AIDS is not an issue of sex workers, or truck drivers alone, these groups may have been on the frontline when the virus first came but now it has spread to all parts of the community. The truck drivers coming from Nepal, north-eastern states, Gujarat, Punjab and Mumbai are considered to be potential carriers of HIV and AIDS. This is due to their reported indulgence in multi-partner sex without using condoms.

The SACS(State AIDS Control Society) which was constituted by the state government in 1999 on the directive of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) is now taking it seriously. The NACO has directed the SACS to identify the stopovers along the National Highways and Grand Trunk Road where these truck drivers infect women coming into their contact. The State AIDS Control Society (SACS) has decided to distribute condoms free of cost at all the transit points on way to Nepal and at different strategic points located along the NHs and GT Road.

The organisation feels that by giving free condoms to the target group, the number of those infected can be brought down considerably.

The Central Govt. has decided to replace the 20-year-old non-formal education scheme with the Education Guarantee Alternative and Innovative scheme from April 1 in the entire country.

Accordingly, Bihar government would wind up about 50,000 of its non-formal education centres on March 31 this year.

As far as the education guarantee scheme is concerned, the Bihar government is likely to open about 1.36 lakh primary education guarantee centres in two phases. These centres would cover about 34 lakh children in the age group of six to 14 years. According to the tentative proposal prepared by the adult education directorate, 40 per cent of these centres would be established in the first phase, while the remaining 60 per cent would come up in the second phase.

These centres would be located in villages not having any school in the radius of 1 km. The centres would generate partial employment to a large number of unemployed educated youth. Major chunk of the fund utilised would be borne by the Centre. The share of the Centre and the state government would be in the ratio of 3:1.

More...

Back