Kadapa, Aug. 20: The district administration registered criminal cases against 19 officials and people's representatives at the Veerapunayanipalle police station on Tuesday for misusing funds sanctioned for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). A total of Rs 2.7 crore was spent in Veerapunayanipalle mandal under the NREGS. About Rs 60 lakh was spent at Yerramalapalle, Paya-sampalle, Ganumakulapalle, N. Palagiri and Indukuru in the mandal. Funds sanctioned under the NREGS to shift soil to the lands of dalits, were misused. The mandal parishad development officer, assistant project officer, field assistants and technical assistants failed to check misuse of funds. In the inquiry, it was found that soil was not supplied to even one acre in Yerramalapalle, but bills were sanctioned for 242 acres. In Payasampalle, soil was shifted to only 11 acres of dalits. Cases were registered against MPDO Venka-teswarlu, APO Nagalakshmi, mandal engineer Vis-wanath, technical assistants D. Srinivasulu, C.V. Rama-na and Aravinda Azad, field assistants Y. Rushikesava Reddy, D.V. Ramana, N.V. Govinda and C. Venkatasubbaiah, computer operator Narendra Reddy, Yerramalapalle and N. Palagiri panchayat secretary K. Srinivasulu, Gonamakulapalle secretary N. Nagabhushanam, Indukur secretary Diwakar, Y. Sekhar Reddy, husband of Yerramalapalle sarpanch, Bhaskar, husband of Gonamakulapalle sarpanch, sar-panches of Indukur, Paya-sampalle and N. Palagiri, J. Ramulaiah, Naganna and Prabhakar respectively, and some others. The district administration constituted five inquiry teams after media reports about misuse of funds. The in-charge collector, Mr Girija Sankar, directed further inquiry into the misuse of funds.