Thrissur: As per the reports, crores of money are being misappropriated in the name of forest protection councils and eco-development committees. As per the findings of the police vigilance, over Rs 3,000 crores has been spent over the last two decades under the pretext of implementing various projects, but several of them have just remained on paper.       

An estimated fraud of Rs 300 crores has been done in the last two decades. In Kerala, there are 1,500 forest protection councils and 500 eco-development committees in total. A council receives almost Rs 1 crore from the government per year. There is no further monitoring of the disbursed funds, making things easier for the miscreants.

An average of Rs 4-5 lakhs is expected to remain in each of the accounts, but that’s not the case always.

Jungle Safari

A lot of discrepancies have been identified in the vigilance inspection named ‘Jungle Safari’. For example, in the Periyar Tiger Conservation Foundation, parking fees are being collected via Google Pay. But the money is being sent to the personal account of the employee. In the inspection, it was also found that details of the generated tickets were being erased from the ticket vending machine and the integrated computer. This allows the employee to siphon off the entire money.