Barely eight months after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India tabled a damning report on the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Parliament, the ministry of rural development has invited the country?s apex auditor to conduct a fresh performance audit of UPA?s flagship programme.
?Since the NREGS has now completed three years and covers all 615 districts of the country, we felt that it was time to get a fresh audit of the scheme. We have written to the CAG requesting them to conduct a fresh performance audit,? rural development secretary Rita Sharma told FE.
The CAG had conducted an audit of the NREGS during May to September 2007 in the 200 districts that were initially covered by it. In its audit report tabled in Parliament in October 2008, it had found significant dilution of the NREG Act because of poor record maintenance, delayed payment of wages and non-payment of unemployment allowance.
The audit had noted that ?systems for financial management and tracking were deficient, as monthly squaring and reconciliation of accounts at different levels to maintain financial accountability and transparency was not being done?.
?In our last audit, we had recommended certain measures to the ministry of rural development for proper implementation of the scheme. Once these are in place, we will conduct a fresh audit,? CAG of India Vinod Rai said.
For effective implementation of the NREGS, the CAG had recommended measures such as streamlining maintenance of records at the gram panchayat level. It had also called for ?up-to-date data entry of all important documents to achieve transparency and accountability, besides providing a basis for verification?.
It had asked the rural development ministry to persuade states to put in place effective grievance redressal mechanisms to ensure that all registered households get 100 days of work.
The CAG had also suggested that the Centre should consider amending the NREGA to partially reimburse (out of its own funds) the payment of unemployment allowance as making states responsible for this was leading to non-transparent recording of employment demand.
Under the NREGS, if a worker does not get employment within 15 days of registering, he or she should get an unemployment allowance from the state government. This, the CAG, had pointed out creates an incentive for ?non-transparent recording of employment demand? by states-by not updating the employment register.
However, the ministry has decided to let states bear the full burden of the unemployment allowance as it builds pressure on them to provide jobs to workers within the specified time limit. ?If the Centre were to partially pay the unemployment allowance, it would defeat the purpose of the scheme,? Sharma said.
The ministry has already pushed through many of the measures, such as paying workers? wages directly through workers? accounts in banks and post offices, strengthening of the management information system to ensure reliability and authenticity of data as well as setting up an independent Grievance Redressal mechanism through Lok Adalat and launching a national helpline.