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New Delhi: The
poorest of poor were not able to exercise their rights fully under
the job guarantee act and several irregularities have been noticed
in works and procedures under the government's ambitious scheme, a CAG report tabled in parliament Tuesday said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) report said that
widespread instances of non-payment and delayed payment of wages
have been noticed in 23 states under the Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
It said that the per rural household employment declined from 54
days in 2009-10 to 43 days in 2011-12. There was also a
substantial decline in the proportion of works completed in
2011-12.
It said that instances of works abandoned midway or not completed
for a significant period were noticed.
"Works of Rs.2,252.43 crore, which were undertaken under the
scheme, were not permissible. It was seen that 7,69,575 works
amounting to Rs.4,070.76 crore were incomplete even after one to
five years. It was also noted that expenditure on works amounting
to Rs.6,547.35 crore did not result in creation of durable
assets," the report said.
The report said that an analysis of releases made to states for
the period April 2007 to March 2012 and poverty data showed that
three states - Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh - had 46
percent of the rural poor in India but accounted for only 20
percent of the total funds released under the scheme.
"This would indicate that the poorest of poor were not fully able
to exercise their rights under MGNREGS," the report said.
It said that correlation between poverty levels and implementation
of the scheme was not very high.
The CAG report also indicted the rural development ministry,
saying that it relaxed all conditionalities and released a sum of
Rs.1,960.45 crore in March 2011 to the states, contravening norms
of financial accountability.
"An amount of Rs.4,072.99 crore was released by the ministry
during 2008-12 to states for use in the subsequent financial
years, in contravention of budgetary provisions. Excess funds of
Rs.2,374.86 crore were released by the ministry to six states,
either due to wrong calculation or without taking note of the
balances available with the states," the report said.
It said there were significant inefficiencies in the
implementation of the annual plans.
"In 14 states and one UT, 129.22 lakh works amounting to
Rs.1,26,961.11 crore were approved in the annual plans. Of these,
only 30 percent of planned works were completed during the audit
period," the report said.
The CAG said despite NREGA being in force for seven years,
governments of Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar
Pradesh did not formulate rules for carrying out provisions of the
act, as of March 2012.
The report noted that job cards were not issued to 12,455
households in six states, photographs were not found pasted on
4.33 lakh job cards in seven states, there were multiple job cards
in the name of the same person in 18,325 cases and there were
delays in issue of job cards ranging up to 51 months in 12,008
cases.
The CAG said unemployment allowance was not paid in 47,687 cases
and non-payment of wages of Rs.36.97 crore was noticed in 14
states.
The report said there were cases of suspected misappropriation of
funds of Rs.128.23 crore in eight states and tampering with muster
rolls was noticed in 10 states.
Noting that monitoring at the central level was unsatisfactory,
the CAG report said the central council could not fulfill its
statutory mandate of establishing a central evaluation and
monitoring system even after six years of its existence.
The MGNREGS provides for 100 days of wage employment to every
rural household willing to take up manual labour.
The performance audit by the CAG was taken up in response to a
request from the rural development ministry and covered the period
from April 2007 to March 2012.
Implementation of the scheme was checked in 3,848 panchayats in 28
states and four Union Territories.
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