A ₹136.28 crore fake payment scam under the central Jal Jeevan Mission has come to light in Madhya Pradesh. An internal inquiry led by Rewa’s District Collector, Pratibha Pal, uncovered fraudulent expenditures between 2022 and 2023 under the handpump and TPI (Third-Party Inspection) heads, involving senior and mid-level water board officials.
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Ghost Payments Disguised as Public Works
A five-member investigation committee constituted on June 27, 2023, audited the Public Health Engineering (PHE) office’s accounts. They exposed a trail of inflated and non-existent payments that included ₹130.47 crore under Jal Jeevan Mission, ₹3.17 crore for handpump maintenance, ₹74.64 lakh for TPI, ₹85.70 lakh for ISA contracts, plus ₹1.02 crore for stationery, vehicles, and photocopying, summing to ₹136.28 crore. The audit identified that the checks and balances had been systematically bypassed, resulting in heavy losses to taxpayers.
Inquiry Report Buried for a Year
IAS officer Sonali Dev from the 2022 batch led the audit and submitted her findings to the collector on March 4, 2024. However, the report lingered unaddressed within divisional and ministerial offices for over a year. There was no follow-up from the Department of Public Health Engineering, raising questions about administrative inaction and possible collusion.
The inquiry named 24 officers and employees—such as Sharad Kumar Singh, Sanjay Pandey, SK Srivastava, RK Singh, Rajiv Srivastava, Syed Shayak Nakvi, Archana Dubey, Vikas Kumar, and Rahim Khan—as key suspects involved in approving these fictitious disbursements.
Implications for Governance and Oversight
This appears to be the first alleged fraud of this magnitude under the Jal Jeevan Mission in the state. Reform advocates say the case underscores a deep governance failure in central schemes intended to provide piped water access. The delayed response—from audit in March 2024 to public revelation in July 2025—has eroded trust in institutional safeguards. Critics are joining calls for real-time digital auditing, transparency portals, and mandatory accountability at all administrative levels.
About the Author – Anirudh Mittal is a B.Sc. LL.B. (Hons.) student at National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, with a keen interest in corporate law and tech-driven legal change.