A water supply program designed to give every household a tap instead gave every official a commission. The taps remain theoretical; the commissions were very real.
The Jal Jeevan Mission — India's flagship program to pipe clean water to every rural home — hit a slight implementation snag in Rajasthan: someone forgot to build the water infrastructure. Over ₹960 crore was siphoned through forged tenders and fabricated completion reports between 2021-2023, with incomplete pipelines certified as finished and commissions flowing more reliably than any tap. The ACB, CBI, and ED are all now investigating, which means three agencies are chasing the same officials who couldn't build one pipeline. An ex-IAS officer is the subject of a manhunt, proving that India's bureaucrats can move with remarkable speed when the destination is "anywhere but a courtroom."