Zihad Hossain Rahat, Raipur (Lakshmipur)

At least 25 representatives have allegedly embezzled money without doing the work of the EGPP project properly at Raipur in Lakshmipur.

Recently, the Employment Generation Program for the Extreme Poor (EGPP) has been started under the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief.

The main objective of this project is to improve the quality of life of the extremely poor by making 400 taka per day.

Every day, the poor are supposed to cut the soil and repair the rural roads. But excluding the poor, the road is being repaired by hiring 'soil cutting teams' and vecator machines. As a result, those for whom this project is left out. Defeating the objectives of the project, depriving the real beneficiaries.

UP member Liton Gain challenged this Correspondent without doing the repair work on the dirt road west from Charchakia Chayal Bazar of South Char Banshi Union of the upazila. Want to pay one thousand five taka oil cost.

Nuru Sikder (47), whose house the road starts from, said that the road was a canal. I have mortgaged my wife's jewelery and filled the ground. It has been five months today and I have not been able to remove the jewelry. The soil was not put on the road by the government. We filled the ground with our own money. Hearing the amount of allocation, the people of his area, including him, put their hands on their heads. He also said that Member Liton Gaine had planned to kill money.

Liton Gain, an accused UP member, said that Chairman Sir knows everything. ask him Later, UP Chairman Abu Zafar said, you journalists write about the news of radish theft. Leave these out.

Residents said that Liton Gain member has not done any development work from the member in the last two terms. When asked about road renovation or anything else, he repeatedly said that the government does not give any allocation to fodder. Work with your own money. Later, the locals were forced to work with their own money.

The soil has not been cut here considering the movement of people. Leaving such liability without repair. Then they have no way to know how much soil is cut on this road. Because there is no signboard near the work. They can't even ask anyone any questions because of that. They want the intervention of the higher authorities to stop the irregularities.

On the other hand, Samcul Islam Samu, a UP member of Keroa, came to know that two roads were being worked together in Keroa Union and went to the ground. In this regard, he said, a road work is ongoing. I will do another one. Besides, the dirt road from Athiya house to Ludhua Madrasah has not been worked either. UP member Sohel got the work.

Former Chhatra League leader Kawsar Hossain completed the renovation by dropping only a few pieces of mud on the mud road from BDR Safiulla Road to Barkandaz Bari in the same union.

In this regard, Chairman Shahinur Begum said, I know that this road has not been worked. The project president is a reserved woman UP member of Ward No. 1, 2 and 3. I heard that PIO has gone for Hajj. So they didn't work. For the same reason, the Abul kalam (Kalu) member of my council also did not work. Later, UP member Arifur Rahman visited the allotted roads in Keroa and found pictures of attempted pond theft on all the roads except the road from Bill's house main road to Bill's house.

UP member Nazrul Islam has completed the work of the mud road from West Charkachia Sikdarkandi road south towards Chayal Bazar without local super poor people only with the help of machine. Locals said that he completed 29 days of work in 5 days. Nazrul Member works on this road every year. But if a culvert is made, it does not need to be renovated so many times. They don't even do culverts to get the budget.

In this regard UP member Nazrul Islam said that the work of this road is done by myself and the chairman. If you hire people, you have to pay more. Vekku takes less money, the profit is more, that's what I did. Talk to the chairman. In this regard, Chairman Abu Jafar said, Nazrul member looked after the work completely. I don't know anything about whether it was done with or not at all.

Little work has been done on two of the three roads of Sonapur UP, but one road has not been worked at all. Ali Haider has prepared the bill paper even though the road from Belal Road to Dhopa Bari has not been completed.

Under the EGPP (Employment Program for the Extremely Poor) scheme, the second scheme in the financial year (2023-24) has seen the allocation of around 45 roads in Raipur. In about 40 cases, grand theft has been attempted. The work period started on April 20 this year, but the work period ended in the last week of May, but the work book is more than 95 percent empty.
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On an average, about 33 workers were supposed to work every day, but only 5-10 workers were employed. The road has also been made with vacuator machines. It completed 29 days of road work in 2 to 5 days. Somewhere it took a day longer. As far as the amount of work done, no one worked more than seven days.

As Upazila Project Implementation Officer Ashekur Rahman was on Hajj and the officer with additional responsibility was not available, it was not possible to take their statement.

UNO Md Imran Khan said, I have inquired about every work. He will be billed for the amount of work he has done. No one will get a penny more than that.