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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | UP should have dedicated staff to monitor, implement MGNREGS by Arvind Singh Bisht

UP should have dedicated staff to monitor, implement MGNREGS by Arvind Singh Bisht

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published Published on Mar 9, 2011   modified Modified on Mar 9, 2011

Often criticised for lapses in the past, Uttar Pradesh is now credited for it's initiative to implement the Centrally-sponsored Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme successfully in the state.

"I could see the increasing participation of people in it (MGNREGS) and the openness to reforms on the part of the government," said a Planning Commission member, Mihir Shah after attending a state-level discussion held here on Wednesday titled 'MGNREGS in UP: Challenges, potential and way forward'.

However, he hurriedly added that there were many miles to go to achieve 100% success and for this he suggested that there was a need to address key issues like upkeeping of work records, job card records, muster rolls, wage mechanism, unequal wages, non-operational bank accounts and widening community participation at every level.

Identifying the shortage of staff at panchayat level, Shah said, "Additional charge syndrome should be done away by having a fully dedicated staff for implementing and monitoring the MGNREGS scheme. There are around 22 centrally sponsored schemes, which are being implemented through around 52,000 gram panchayats in rural areas of the state."

Each panchayat has a jurisdiction over five to six villages. In his duties and work, a gram pradhan is assisted by a village panchayat secretary. But due to insufficient in number, each secretary is attached to at least five-six gram panchayats. This has created a piquant situation in which works get pending and payments against this also get delayed. By an official record, there are only 14,000 village panchayat secretaries to man all 52,000 gram panchayats in the state.

Shah also said, "The issue should be addressed on a priority basis and asked the government to look into it."As far as the utilisation of the fund allocated under the MGNREGS is concerned, he said 6% of the total allocations was earmarked for capacity building of the gram panchayats. This could be utilised on trainings, human resource development and strengthening the staff structure. "However, UP had so far made a poor performance on this count," he said.

The Planning Commission member also alleged that the panchayat secretariat had not been set up and even if they had been set up, they were poorly managed.

Explaining on this issue, Anurag Yadav, additional rural development commissioner, said that the government had made up a plan to make panchayat secretariat fully operative in all the 5,000 gram panchayats, which have population around 5,000. In this scheme, 3,000 pancyayats secretariats would be made fully operative in equal number of gram panchayats by the end of March. "The remaining would be covered in the next phase," he said, and added that a proposal to this effect had been given a go ahead at a high-level meeting presided over by the chief secretary.

He also gave the overview of the MGNREGS and said that reforms were still under process to improve the delivery mechanism and address the issues related to muster roll, notices about works and payment of dues and wages. However, Yadav said that this was such a gigantic task, which could not be achieved overnight. "The work culture perpetuated under the existing set up of 60 years of bureaucracy was also needed to be changed," he said, adding that the success of programmes like MGNREGS depends more on the community participation rather than on the bureaucracy.

Intervening at this, Shah said, "For this purpose, the government should recognise action groups of people and welcome their suggestions, rather than treating them as an irritants." Nearly 400 delegates drawn from government, community groups and NGOs participated in the discussion.


The Times of India, 10 March, 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/UP-should-have-dedicated-staff-to-monitor-implement-MGNREGS/articleshow/7667494.cms
 

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