Acting on allegations of misappropriation of funds under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, the Karnataka Lokayukta on Friday conducted simultaneous raids in 11 places, including the offices and residences of three senior officials of the Women and Child Development Department in Bangalore, Bidar, Tumkur, Mysore and Raichur.
The Lokayukta police seized gold ornaments, platinum and silver articles and documents pertaining to the ownership of properties and other material from the offices and residences of IAS officer and former Director of the Department Shamla Iqbal, Joint Director Usha Patwari and Assistant Director Muniraju.
The police also confiscated food samples and documents from Christie Fried Gram Industries and anganwadi centres from these places. A case has been registered under sections 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.
“It was alleged that the officials had misused the funds amounting to Rs. 600 crore per annum for the scheme which was meant for providing nutritional supplement to children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers,” Additional Director-General of Police (ADGP) Lokayukta Satyanarayana Rao told reporters here on Friday.
The quality of the nutritional and supplementary food packets was “substandard”, he said.
Violation
The Mahila Supplementary Nutrition Production Centres (MSNPCs), which aims to provide nutritious food to children at anganwadi centres in the State, came under the scanner of the Lokayukta.
According to Lokayukta sources, the Department of Women and Child Development had violated norms and the Supreme Court's directions in awarding the contract to Christie Fried Gram Industries, a Tamil Nadu-based company, to supply food to MSNPC in the State.
The Department of Women and Child Development had, in 2001, decided to supply nutritious food to anganwadis of the then 27 districts in the State under its Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). To implement the programme, it had decided to establish 137 MSNPCs in the districts.
