Captive job cards. Fake bank accounts. Coercion by pradhans. In Uttar Pradesh, ingenious methods are employed to deprive the poor of MGNREGA benefits, reports Abhishek Bhalla
Project undone A half-dug pond that was later abandoned

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has written a fresh letter to UP Chief Minister Mayawati over alleged irregularities in implementation of MNREGA in seven districts and demanded a CBI probe into it.

In a 14-page letter to Mayawati, Ramesh cited the instances of alleged irregularities and corruption in implementation of the scheme in Balrampur, Gonda, Mahoba, Sonbhadra, Kushinagar, Mirzapur and Sant Kabir Nagar.

Rain claimed four lives in Uttar Pradesh and forced officials to issue an alert in Uttarakhand as the monsoon remained fairly active in North India on Wednesday.

LUCKNOW: More areas in Terai region along the UP-Nepal border and central UP were flooded as water level of rivers flowing via Nepal continued to rise on Tuesday. The situation in Barabanki and Gonda worsened with water from the Ghaghra river, which breached an embankment at Elgin on Monday, entering more villages forcing people to shift to safer places.

Following heavy rain in its catchment areas and release of water from upstream barrages, the turbulent Ghagra swept away the Ring embankment and breached the Elgin-Charsari embankment on the border of Barabanki district with Gonda district in Uttar Pradesh on Monday.

Official sources here said that following the heavy breach in the embankment five villages in Barabanki and about 50 in Gonda district were cut off from neighbouring areas, affecting a population of 13,500.

AMITA VERMA
LUCKNOW

He takes unusual gifts to weddings and makes the bride and the groom accept it.

Santosh Bajpai, a government employee in Gonda district, makes it a point to attend every wedding function in his district

LUCKNOW: The flood situation in the 12 districts of western Uttar Pradesh continued to be grim on Wednesday with Moradabad, which has been inundated by the Ramganga, being the worst affected even as the Ganga, Yamuna, Ramganga, Kosi and their tributaries showed a receding trend.

The situation in Barabanki, Bahraich, Gonda, Balrampur and Maharajganj districts of eastern U.P.

The flood situation continues to be grim as large swathe of area remained inundated after rains lashed large parts of the state in last 48 hours. Many schools have been turned into relief camps. Villagers are being evacuated from villages and shifted to these camps.

"Situation is very bad in Barabanki and Gonda where Ghaghra is in spate.

Alleging corruption in maintenance work of dams in the state, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on Sunday demanded a judicial probe in to breaking of Algin-Charsadi dam leading to hundreds of villages being flooded in Gonda and Barabanki districts.

RLD state president Ram Asrey Verma accusing state administration for playing with the lives of people said, only due to poor quality of maintenance work Algi

The work of road construction at the National Highway, NH 28, near the Sitrampurmajha village in Basti district has been stopped to allow a stray tiger to move into Sohelwa forest via the Gonda reserve forest. The tiger had strayed from Ghazipur and had moved into Basti district and has been keeping the Forest department officials on their toes.