* Documentary evidence gathered by the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Rajasthan points to large-scale embezzlement in nrega projects * Panchayats often furnish fake bills and fictitious companies have been floated to divert funds * Hundreds of crores are lost to this sort of leakage * The CAG, too, has pointed out large-scale irregularities and corruption in the implementation of NREGA projects...
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Khap terror by TK Rajalakshmi
ON February 12, Meham town in Rohtak district, Haryana, saw a citizens’ convention that was unusual in more than one sense. First, it was being held from the ramparts of the Meham Chaubisi Chabootara, a platform reserved for members of the Meham panchayat (a conglomeration of 24 villages, better known as the Meham Chaubisi). Second, the meeting was not dominated by any one caste. Third, it was a congregation of...
More »Employment guarantee scheme under scanner after hunger death
A landless labourer dies on Christmas day after going without food for five days. Neither he nor his wife, who was a job card holder under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, knew they could demand work or avail of unemployment benefits as a right It was a death that could have been avoided. Kishen Singh, a 45-year-old landless labourer, died of hunger in Champakheda village in south Rajasthan. What...
More »Poor people unite against corrupt sarpanches
A large number of civil society organisations and common people from various districts of Rajasthan staged a massive protest rally in Jaipur on Dec 15 against the state government’s inaction in the implementation of social audits in the NREGS works. They have charged that the state government has deliberately avoided taking action against elected sarpanches who have managed to stall the process of social audits in the state. Over 1500...
More »Violence and threats bring a government to its knees by Vidya Subrahmaniam
Rajasthan had emerged as a model for transparency and accountability in NREGS implementation. Tragically, entrenched interests have been allowed to hijack the process. Through the second half of October and for most of November this year, Rajasthan was engulfed in an unusual form of protest, spearheaded in the main by gram panchayat officials. Joined in some places by elected MLAs and MPs, and backed covertly by a section of District...
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