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BHOPAL: Call it the vanishing-toilet scam. More than 4.5 lakh Swachh loos have been flushed into oblivion in Madhya Pradesh , along with the Rs 540 crore it took to build them.

The toilets may never be found — though the administration has GPS-tagged photographs of each of them — but the government aims to recover every paisa spent on them. It’s a reminder of the toilet door scam unearthed in Guna district in 2017, where the iron doors of 42,000 toilets were built 10kg lighter, leading to siphoning of crores.

The ‘vanishing’ toilets were supposed to have been built — at least on paper — between 2012 and October 2018. But they don’t exist. Officials believe that the photographs submitted as proof of Swachh toilet construction were actually clicked elsewhere, perhaps at neighbours’ homes as proof of money spent.

Some villagers blew the whistle in Betul’s tribal Lakkadjam panchayat and complained to officials. A probe quickly found that four Swachh beneficiaries — Chaitram, Ram Kishore, Kansraj and Shambhudayal — were not even aware that toilets have been built in their name. On government records, not only do their homes have toilets but the government portal has pictures of them before loos as well. Officials found that all four were photographed in front of a neighbour’s toilet.

“A detailed probe was conducted in Lakkadjam panchayat, and the complaints were found to be true. For these toilets and other similar anomalies, a recovery of Rs 7 lakh was imposed on the accused. They appealed against the recovery order, but the penalty was upheld. Once recovery is done, we will initiate action under IPC . I have ordered investigation of all the other work done in the panchayat,” chief executive officer (CEO) of Betul panchayat ML Tyagi told TOI.

It set alarm bells ringing and the panchayat and rural development department has since identified 4.5 lakh such missing ‘paper toilets’ across the state. In monetary terms, toilets worth Rs 540 crores are missing, said an official.

“In 2012, a baseline survey was conducted and 62 lakh above-poverty-line households without toilets were identified in the state. On October 2, 2018, construction of all these toilets was complete. But to ensure that these toilets are actually present and 100% complete, we conducted a survey and physical verification using 21,000 volunteers. During this survey, around 4.5 lakh toilets were found to be missing,” deputy director of Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) Madhya Pradesh, Ajit Tiwari, told TOI.

A second physical verification is under way. “It is being conducted by district-level officers. We hope it will be complete in a couple of months. Then, we will have a cleaner picture of the numbers of Swachh mission toilets. Our objective is to ensure that the toilets or assets built by the government are actually present,” said Tiwari. The data will be put in public domain so that the beneficiaries can check for any anomaly, he added.

“There were two processes of making payments. Panchayats were provided money upon completion of toilets in households, or the government transferred Rs 12,000 to beneficiaries’ accounts once they built the toilets. In both cases, it is clear where the money went. So, people responsible for the missing toilets will have to build them for real, or the face music. The sole objective is to ensure 100% completion of the target identified in 2012,” Tiwari said.

Asked how the scamsters beat technology since Swachh toilet photographs are geo-mapped, Tiwari said: “The GPS is accurate up to 6 metres. Most probably, pictures of toilets within 6 metres were uploaded in the name of the beneficiaries or pictures of toilets built prior to 2012 were uploaded. Things will be clear once the second survey is complete.”

