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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Civil society groups to do NREGA audit again

Civil society groups to do NREGA audit again

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published Published on Feb 1, 2011   modified Modified on Feb 1, 2011

The Manmohan Singh government has moved in to restore the role of civil society groups in conducting the social audit of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in an attempt to weed out corruption from various levels.

The Rural Development Ministry is in consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General to remove the lacuna that had cropped up after social audit rules were amended in 2009 to eliminate the role of civil society groups.

A committee of state secretaries has also been formed to look into the issue, and it has been given a month to examine the issue and submit its report within two months.

Till 2009, civil society groups, such as Rajasthan's MKSS, played a crucial role in carrying out social audit of the programme within the state. They highlighted irregularities committed in its execution at various levels, triggering a wave of resentment among sarpanches, who opposed the scrutiny. A group of sarpanches subsequently obtained a stay from the high court on activities of these civil society organisations, and the exercise of social audit was jettisoned.

The government, in the meantime, incorporated Section 13 in Schedule I of the MGNREGA, by which the gram sabhas were assigned a pivotal role in the carrying out social audit within their domain. The move, however, resulted in reducing the process to a farce. "The sarpanches and the mukhiyas are the most powerful people in a village. Very few people would have the guts to raise their voice against them to highlight any irregularity,'' an official pointed out.

To remove the anomaly, the Rural Development Ministry is now working to club Section 24 of the MGNREGA with Section 17. Section 24 (1) says the central government may, in consultation with the CAG , prescribe appropriate arrangements for audits of the accounts of the schemes at all levels, while Section 24 (2) provides that the accounts of the scheme shall be maintained in such a form and in such manner as may be prescribed by the state government.

Section 17, on the other hand, makes out a case for social audit of work done in the panchayat by its gram sabha.

Andhra Pradesh, according to the rural development ministry, is the only state which has drafted social audit rules and had even set up a separate organisation for framing them. They have gone to the extent of inducting a civil society activist for heading the organisation, something which has paid rich dividends and is borne out by the fact that while in Andhra Pradesh misappropriation to the tune of Rs 88 crore has been detected so far, it is not even Rs 8 crore in the rest of the country. Besides, about 5,000 officials have been removed on charges of corruption and other irregularities.

The Rural Development Ministry had constituted 6 Sub-Groups of the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), one of which was headed by NAC member Aruna Roy. She had not only authored the report on social audit, she had also recommended adoption of the Andhra model for the rest of the country. To mark the fifth anniversary of the programme, the Rural Development Ministry has organised a function here on Wednesday. It will be attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

As the Congress-led alliance basks in its glory, activists feel this is the right juncture to do an honest stock-taking and go in for a course correction.

The scheme, it is pointed out, was able to keep the rural areas free of turmoil at the height of economic meltdown. It, however, appears to be sinking under the weight of corruption in some states. There is also little emphasis on creation of assets. MGNREGA would, these activists point out, be able to justify itself only if it leads to a healthy growth in agriculture. Despite being in existence for five years now, it has not been able to place its transparency mechanism and asset-creating processes in place.

There have been complaints galore involving financial irregularities on part of the officials and the panchayati raj functionaries. Even the Supreme Court is seized of the matter. A report by former Union Rural Development Secretary KB Saxena into the implementation of the scheme in four districts of Uttar Pradesh came out with a horrifying picture. The sarpanches, it found out, had treated MGNREGA funds as their pocket money and had spent them either on ventures which would do more harm than good or had been embezzling funds by denying employment to the needy.

The report also discovered that employment given under the Programme to Dalit women was negligible and, in most cases, purposely denied so that the agricultural wages could remain artificially depressed. Similar complaints have come from many other states, including Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan and Bihar. In Madhya Pradesh, glaring instances have been found of dead persons in the wages register.

The Economic Times, 1 February, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/civil-society-groups-to-do-nrega-audit-again/articleshow/7401035.cms


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