Relief paid to non-existent farmers for borewells that didn’t exist

The Gobindpura thermal plant land compensation scam, which got five revenue officials of Mansa chargesheeted in May, has got murkier. The issue of wrongly giving government jobs to outsiders had cropped up earlier. Now, many irregularities have emerged in the compensation paid for borewells and motor pumps. In documents — that are in the possession of The Tribune — many farmers who exist only on paper had got compensation up to Rs 2 lakh each for their motor pumps and borewell in their fields. In connivance with officials of the revenue department at the village and tehsil level, a number of farmers — who had neither installed a motor pump and nor had they got a ‘kotha’ constructed over the pump in their fields that were acquired for the thermal plant — had become beneficiaries. Village Nambardar Babra Singh is a big contender in the list of compensation-getters for motor-pumps. Babra Singh got Rs 1.55 lakh for borewell and Rs 70,762 for the ‘kotha’ in his field and his brother Tehal Singh got Rs 1.42 lakh for the borewell that they allegedly never had in their fields.