Defeating the objective of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) to secure livelihood of the rural poor, 7,37,688 labourers employed under the scheme were paid their wages after a delay of more than three months in several districts of Madhya Pradesh.
Apart from this, other serious financial irregularities in implementation of MNREGA in the State for the period 2011-12 has been revealed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit report.
The report prepared by the Gwalior office of CAG, was submitted to the State’s MNREGA Council in February 2013 for taking action on it.
However, even after more than two months no action has been forthcoming from the State Government on the matter.
“The indifference and negligence of the Chief Minister regarding implementation of MNREGA is revealed by the fact that he has not convened the meeting of the Governing Body of MNREGA Council of which he is the chairperson.
Even the chief secretary, who is head of the executive body of MNREGA Council never took any action to prevent these financial irregularities,” alleged Right to Information activist Ajay Dubey who provided a copy of CAG’s report to media on Sunday, demanding a CBI probe of the financial irregularities.
According to the report, in eight districts of Madhya Pradesh, more than 40 per cent of the MNREGA funds were used in procuring materials in violation of Government’s rule stipulating that not more than 40 per cent should be spent on materials.
The report also indicts MNREGA Council for its failure to provide a realistic budgetary estimate based on actual demand of work.
Due to this, a sum of `191492.51 lakh was left unutilised with the Council and also in many districts.
The report also points out that in 30 districts of Madhya Pradesh more than 6 per cent of the funds were spent on administrative expenses amounting to `3850.21 lakh.
Another major lapse of the MNREGA Council that the report points out is that it issued a utilisation certificate that exceeds the actual utilisation of funds by `11903.89 lakh.
Besides, the council also made failed to get the utilisation certificate from the government and non-government agencies that were given `64.37 lakh for specific purposes.
It also notes that the MNREGA funds under Bundelkhand package were also not fully utilised.
Thus, poor households in this backward region were deprived of benefits due to failure of the Government machinery.