The creche scheme was funded by the federal government until December 2016. The ICCW was one of the implementing businesses and it had claimed that 5,029 creches had been useful in 2015-16. Image for illustration
| Photo Credit: Mahinsha S.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken over the probe into the alleged embezzlement of funds launched to the Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) underneath the Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) and re-registered a case towards the unknown individuals, officers stated on Thursday.
Based on a criticism lodged by the Ministry, the case was earlier registered on the Parliament Street police station in April 2019. However, now it has been transferred and due to this fact re-registered it.
The creche scheme was funded by the federal government until December 2016. The ICCW was one of the implementing businesses and it had claimed that 5,029 creches had been useful in 2015-16.
In 2015, a writ petition was filed earlier than the Delhi High Court alleging that the ICCW had been working in “clear violation” of the monetary guidelines. The court docket constituted a three-member committee, which submitted a report, on the premise of which it issued an order on January 2, 2018, observing that the Centre may refer the matter to an investigation company such because the CBI if that’s the case warranted.
Subsequently, an inside inquiry was undertaken on the then MWCD’s path to find out the position of ICCW officers. It discovered a number of alleged irregularities, together with improper maintaining of monetary information, money disbursements, and delays in rendering full accounts to the federal government.
“The manner of functioning indicates either a lack of control over filed formations or complicity of ICCW and its EC in the way things are being run…there is no evidence that ICCW was conducting inspections regularly in the field. This can be an indicator either of negligence or complicity in running the programmes assigned to ICCW…number of creches taken as running, number of children per creche, number of creches to be run in a State etc. have no reference to ground level reporting and assessment of needs,” the Ministry stated within the criticism.
“Demands were raised for creches that did not exist-refer demanded for 248 creches in Bihar… this shows lack of proper maintenance of records…,” it stated, including that the ICCW had not refunded the unspent stability obtainable with it or its State Councils for 2014-15 and 2015-16.
