How Much Does A Brick Cost? For This Panchayat, It's 10 Times The Usual Amount

Gram panchayats in Madhya Pradesh's Shahdol district are once again making headlines for their arithmetic feats when it comes to bills, and this time the humble brick is at the centre of it all.

A bill for 2,500 bricks at a cost of Rs 1.25 lakh accepted by the Bhatia Gram Panchayat in Budhar block has gone viral. The amount means every brick cost the panchayat Rs 50, nearly ten times the usual price.

The brick purchase bill is in the name of Chetan Prasad Kushwaha of Peribahara village, while the supply bill has been issued for the construction of the boundary wall of an anganwadi building in Patera Tola. The bill also carries the signatures of the sarpanch and secretary of Bhatia village.

This is hardly a one-off. Just weeks ago, the Kudri Gram Panchayat was in the spotlight after Rs 4,000 was sanctioned for photocopying two pages. And, in July, in Bhadhwahi village, according to the bills, 14 kg of dry fruits, 30 kg of namkeen, and 9 kg of fruits were consumed during a one-hour Jal Ganga Samvardhan Abhiyan (promotion campaign).

Even stranger are the shops that issued these bills. One "grocery store", listed as a supplier of cashews and almonds, turned out to be a small shop without even a bill book, GST number, or a kilo of dry fruits in stock. Another bill for ghee and fruits came from a shop that actually sells sand, gravel, and bricks.

And just when the "dry fruit scam" echoes had started to die down, Mauganj district added a new chapter. A similar 40-minute Jal Ganga Samvardhan Abhiyan there cost over Rs 10 lakh. The bills, all in the name of a mysterious "Pradeep Enterprises", included everything from groceries to tents to sweets, and even mattresses and bedsheets, hired from an electronics shop.

Shahdol Collector Dr Kedar Singh admits something seems amiss. He has directed cluster-level officers to inspect 10-12 panchayats daily to check whether such bills are due to negligence or deliberate fraud.