The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is under pressure from several quarters. One such source of pressure is the rural rich whose concerns were recently voiced by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, when he raised the bogey of shortage of supply of farm workers because of the employment guarantee scheme. The fact is that the national average for workdays generated under the scheme is less than half of the...

All rural schemes will also get a common accounting format; audit to begin with MGNREGS in 12 states At a time when the government is reeling under a number of corruption cases—several of these following critical reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG)—the ministry of rural development has roped in the statutory auditor to conduct a financial, compliance and performance audit of its schemes. All schemes of the ministries...

-The Telegraph   The comptroller and auditor general today began a performance audit of the rural job scheme in 12 states, including Bengal, amid allegations of widespread corruption hobbling India’s largest social sector programme. The idea is to see whether the scheme has indeed secured villagers’ livelihood by providing guaranteed employment, and whether rules have been followed in its implementation. For instance, at least 60 per cent of the expenditure on every project under...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...

Less than half the funds allocated to the rural development ministry in the current fiscal year for programmes, including the rural job guarantee plan, have been utilized. This is slower than last year, but the government contends tighter monitoring has prevented misuse of funds. The ministry has released Rs.30,846 crore to states in the first six months of the year, or 42% of the Rs.74,100 crore that has been allocated to...