Before NREG expands, Govt to states: audit, check all rolls

With the expansion of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme beyond the first 200 districts in the offing, the Government has embarked on a course-correction for its future implementation.

With the expansion of the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme beyond the first 200 districts in the offing, the Government has embarked on a course-correction for its future implementation. While some problems — like appearance of fake muster rolls — have been traced in some states, other problems like sub contracting are being anticipated in others.

Therefore, even as the Rural Development Ministry has dispatched its proposal for extension of the scheme to the Planning Commission, all states have been advised to conduct a model social audit and a 100% muster roll verification.

This has been necessitated by anomalies appearing in implementation figures in states where the scheme was launched in February. For instance, NREG implementation figures show that in Arunachal Pradesh the number of rural households are only 7,878 while applications for registration have crossed 17,480.

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Ministry officials say that such anomalies had been noticed in other states like Maharashtra but have since been reconciled after a series of audits and spot visits.

Significantly, the Ministry has now ordered special social audits in five large states where they anticipate problems like largescale fake muster rolls being issued and use of middlemen in contracting works. These states are Bihar, Uttar Pradesh (where the NREG’s takeoff has been very poor), Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Orissa.

The social audit will cover aspects such as social discrimination, quality control and illegal practices marring the scheme under which so far 1.36 crore people have been provided employment.

Ministry officials say that implementation of the NREG in states like Bihar has already become a cause for concern. Reason: it has been noticed that road construction projects account for a vast majority of the works selected under the NREG and that the contracts have been allocated at a high rate. There is an apprehension that sub-contracting of works — similar to what was done in the state for the Golden Quadilateral projects — may be rampant.

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The Ministry is also preparing a proposal for the Cabinet to raise the ceiling of funds to be utilized for administrative expenses from the present 2% to 5% — this translates to Rs 753 crores annually. This comes after several states reported higher expenses on administrative expenditure. A Rural Ministry advisory sent to all Principal Secretaries advised that “due economy should be exercised and expenses on luxury items, purchase of vehicles, expensive furniture and furnishings should be avoided.’’