Guwahati, Feb 06: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has carried out raids in Salt Lake, Kolkata, Baharampur in Murshidabad, Chinsurah in Hoogly district, and Sadar in Jhargram district of West Bengal.
According to sources, the ED is conducting searches at the residences of block-level civil servant officers in all four locations in the state.
According to ED sources, while investigating the 100-day MNREGA scam, they found many names and account details of those who never worked in the scheme but are shown as beneficiaries in the records.
“The block development officer is the nodal officer of this scheme; the first suspicion is on the officers of that level that they too may be involved in the misappropriation of this money. Due to this scam, the Central Government has stopped giving funds to the West Bengal Government under the MNREGA scheme for the last two years,” said a source.
West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee claimed that this amount is around Rs 7 thousand crores.
To get this pending fund, Mamta staged a protest in Kolkata on February 2 and 3, 2024, and the protest is still going on on behalf of her party.