The rural development ministry on Tuesday said that it has initiated several reforms measures to address the concerns highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report on the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (NREGA).
The ministry has shared the CAG report with the states and have initiated corrective action including ensuring that workers? wages are through workers? accounts in Banks and post offices as suggested by the CAG. Around 4.22 crore workers accounts have been opened in banks and post offices and the ministry is closely monitoring the disbursement of wages through the accounts. Independent Grievance Redressal mechanism through Lok Adalat in consultation with National Legal Services Authority is under consideration. A national helpline has also been made operational, the ministry said in an official release. The management information system (MIS) has been strengthened and nodal officers in all states and union territories have been deployed to ensure authenticity and reliability of the data. Over 82.63 lakh Muster Rolls have been verified by respective states and placed on NREGA website http://www.nrega.nic.in . About 1.77 lakh social audits have been conducted.
The issue of inadequacy of staff strength, as pointed by the CAG, has been addressed by the states. They have also been advised to strengthen information and communication technology activities up to block level and utilise the central funds appropriated under administrative expenses. So far, 2.24 lakh gram rozgar sahayaks, 5,277 programme officers, 22,588 technical staff, 6,455 data entry operators and 5,267 accountants have been engaged. Another 6.81 lakh Panchayati Raj Institutions functionaries, 5.51 lakh members of vigilance and monitoring committee and 1.86 lakh gram rozgar sahayaks have been provided training for better implementation of legally mandated processes of NREGA.
The Centre has released Rs 16,244.19 crore up to October, 2008 to states for implementation of the scheme of which in the first phase districts have reported expenditure of Rs 6,880.07 crore. Districts under Phase II of the scheme has spent Rs 3041.19 crore so far and Rs 2471.87 crore has been used by the Phase III districts making an aggregate expenditure of Rs 12,393.13 crore.
The ministry said that NREGA which covers all the 600 districts of the country, currently provides employment to 2.93 crore households generating 109.3 crore persondays of employment and has been able to reach out to the marginalized group such as Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes and women who constitute 54% and 49% of the NREGA workforce respectively. About 19.14 lakh works have been undertaken during the current year. The enhanced wage earnings by NREGA workers have lead to a strengthening of the livelihood resource base of the rural poor in India, in 2007-2008, more than 68% of funds utilised were in the form of wages paid to the labourers. In 2008-2009, 71% of the funds have been utilized to pay the wages.
Minimum wages have shown remarkable upward trend after the implementation of NREGA. In Maharashtra it rose from Rs 47 to Rs 72, in Uttar Pradesh it went up from Rs 58 to Rs 100) and in Bihar and Chhattisgarh the rise was from Rs 68 to Rs 81and Rs 58 to Rs 72.23 respectively. NREGA has provided employment opportunities at the grass root level in rural areas and also the minimum wages have been revised upward under the impact of NREGA, it has resulted into diminishing of distress migration from rural areas, the ministry claimed in the statement. Independent appraisal through IITs, IIMs and other leading universities is being taken up. Accounts and audit rules are at the advance stage of finalization, it said.
The ministry had invited the CAG to conduct a concurrent audit of the implementation of the National Rural Guarantee Act ,2005 in 200 Phase I districts. The programme was launched on 2nd February 2006,and CAG were requested by the ministry to conduct a performance audit in the very first year of its implementation in 2006-07 to assess gaps in programme implementation by the states so that effective remedial measures could be taken based on feedback, in the very first stage of the programme.
