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| More than Rs 15 crores remain unspent under State Employment Guarantee Fund of MGNREGA | | Approved works left out, unapproved taken up | | Jehangir Rashid
SRINAGAR, Nov 2: The State Employment Guarantee Fund established in the state under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has failed to come up to the expectations as an amount of more than Rs 15 crores lies idle under the Fund.
In its report for year ending March 31, 2012, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has said that State Employment Guarantee Fund, though established, has not been operated as intended and as in March 2012, there was undisbursed balance of Rs. 15. 81 crores in the Fund. This the report said mainly represented arrears of undisbursed difference in wages.
"The unspent balances had increased from Rs. 7.07 crores as of April 2007 to Rs. 127.66 crores at the close of March 2012. Cases of retention, delayed release and diversion of funds were noticed in audit. Perspective plans had not been formulated in the initial years of implementation of the scheme and the Labour Budget has been submitted to Government of India belatedly," said the CAG report.
The CAG report said that out of the total number of Rs 27.69 lakh households in the state number of households provided employment ranged between Rs 1.44 lakh (five percent) and Rs 5.67 lakh (20 percent) during 2007-2012. Nine percent households, which demanded employment, were not provided employment nor was unemployment allowance paid to them, the report said.
"While 680 unapproved works had been executed at a cost of Rs. 5.24 crores, 2950 works included in the AAPs had not been taken up for execution. A total number of 484 works had been abandoned midway after spending Rs. 2.92 crores thereon. Records relating to registration of households seeking job and those demanding job had not been maintained," said the CAG report.
The CAG report said that there was overall shortfall of 76 percent (4225 personnel) in engagement of staff of various posts under the scheme. Besides, the shortfall in imparting training of staff ranged between 28 and 100 percent. The delay in payment of wages to the workers ranged between three and 547 days in 245 cases test-checked in audit, the report said.
"The department had neither constituted monitoring committees to monitor quality of works nor appointed Ombudsman to deal with the complaints. While the shortfall in conducting of inspections ranged between 29 and 85 percent in the test checked blocks, the shortfall in respect of Social Audit was 43 percent in the test checked districts," said the CAG report.
The CAG report said that no annual report has been tabled on the state of affairs of the scheme which had been brought out and tabled in the state legislature as required under programme guidelines. |
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