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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | When machine 'replaced' man as NREGA labourer-Vivek Deshpande

When machine 'replaced' man as NREGA labourer-Vivek Deshpande

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published Published on Mar 29, 2013   modified Modified on Mar 29, 2013
-The Indian Express


Yavatmal: Works worth Rs 36 crore were completed in less than four months, supposedly a manual effort under the central employment scheme MNREGS, according to the Maharashtra's forest department. An inquiry ordered by the district collector has found it was made possible by a collusion between forest officials and contractors, who allegedly used machines.

Works worth Rs 32 crore were done in only nine of 56 gram panchayats in the Zari-Jamni tehsil of Yavatmal district. One of these, Hiwra, accounted for Rs 10 crore. The total of Rs 36 crore for 2011-12 marks a hundredfold increase from the Rs 36 lakh for work completed in the same tehsil the previous year.

The probe has found that machines were used at the cost of local manpower, bogus musters were prepared and many of the labourers had their job cards and passbooks taken away by contractors, who allegedly gave them small payments for skipping work.

The probe by three teams was taken up after complaints about irregularities, including one from BJP state president Sudhir Mungantiwar. Payments for over Rs 10 crore had been disbursed until last September, before collector Ashvin Mudgal issued an order stopping payment for works for the remaining Rs 26 crore.

Yavatmal chief conservator of forests Dinesh Tyagi calls the district authorities' probe one-sided and suggests a joint probe. "The inquiry has been done from one side. Natural justice demands the accused persons too be given a chance to defend themselves," he said. "We feel statements of all the labourers on the muster be recorded, not just of a few of them as has been done in this case. The work was going on for four months. If there was use of machines, why wasn't it detected for so long?."

Shravan Hardikar, who was collector then, says: "We were busy with two consecutive elections and the deputy collector in charge of elections was holding additional charge of the employment scheme. We were preoccupied but I started the inquiry myself when I noticed some bloated figures online."

The NREGS Workers' Action Committee, newly formed under the aegis of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti led by farmers' leader Kishor Tiwari, has appealed against the collector's order. The divisional commissioner, Amravati, is the appellate authority. Tiwari's brother Vinod, the committee's lawyer, demanded immediate release of money to the "affected labourers".

MNREGS works for the current year, meanwhile, have come to a standstill.

Among various reasons for stopping payment, the collector's order had said the forest department carried out all the works, when 50 per cent are to be executed by gram panchayats. "The works were decided by the forest department. We had not demanded any work," Van Kalyan Samiti president Keshav Meshram tells The Indian Express at Chikhaldoh village.

At Nimbhadevi, too, sarpanch Madhav Dhurve says the gram panchayat had not given a resolution demanding or approving works.

At Karegaon Paramba, gram sevak Pravin Dhole says most of the works were indeed done by machines. "People's job cards were taken away and they were given Rs 500-1,000," he said. Villagers named some of the contractors allegedly engaged. MNREGS doesn't allow contractors.

Forest guard J A Meshram insists no machines were used. Villager Ramesh Dhurve, on the other hand, says he was among only 40 labourers (the village has 225 job cards) who worked on loose boulder structures (LBS) and a maati nala (nullah digging and cleaning).

At Dubati, Panduran Atram says he and two others of his family worked for two weeks and got Rs 10,000 from a contractor. He says the work was done under the hunda system, which he explains as, "The work has to be done for fixed wages in a fixed time. Some days we got Rs 150, some days Rs 300." MNREGS then paid Rs 127 per day, but over a longer period. Up-sarpanch Shevantabai Atram says Rs 500 was paid to those whose cards were taken away.

"Nobody is saying works haven't been done," says Tiwari, the lawyer. "Everything has been done as per procedurr. Of the 13,000 workers on the rolls, only 610 were bogus. Organising labourers is not contractorship. And we are not saying release money for contractors. Let the government deposit money in labourers' accounts. All works have stopped and labourers are not getting work." He alleges payments haven't stopped in other parts of the district though there have been complaints from there too.

Collector Mudgal says, "We have stopped payments at all such places. A showcause notice too has been issued now. We have initiated disciplinary action against 32 of them (forest officials and staffers) and six of our staffers, including the tahsildar."

Those named in the probe include four range forest officials supervising the works - G G Wankhede, V H Malghane, Arun Metre and R K Bansod. Metre is now an assistant conservator of forests. Then Zari-Jamni tahsildar D H Utkande has since retired but a departmental inquiry is on against him.

What the probe found

Evidence of machines being used for various works

Gram sabhas and gram panchayats not involved in planning and implementation. Forest staff did everything, which is against MNREGS provisions.

Job cards and passbooks of some taken away and parked with the contractor. They were given paltry sums of Rs 500. Some labourers said their signatures were taken on blank bank withdrawal forms.

Names of the labourers were the same and in the same sequence in each muster for different periods, indicating fabrication.

Labourers from one gram panchayat commonly worked on works in different gram panchayat areas.

In Kundi, work on each of four earthen dams started on December 12 and finished on January 7. In all works the same number (20) of musters has been used in serial order. The same has happened in Hiwre Barsa and Rampur.

In Hiwra village alone, works worth Rs 10 crore were carried out. This is disproportionately high for the 468 job cards the village has.

Technically, works done are in good condition.

Funds made available to forest offices were much less than actual expenditure incurred, showing funds were largely outsourced.


The Indian Express, 29 March, 2013, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/when-machine-replaced-man-as-nrega-labourer/1094677/


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