Notwithstanding the Bengal Government’s claim of having topped the MNREGA performance list in the country, Central Government reports put the State far behind the position its political leadership claims.
The report prepared by the Union Rural Development Ministry has positioned Bengal in the 24th slot. “This is as per the parameters applied by the Central Government. But our parameters are also correct and according to that we are on the top of the table,” said a senior Panchayat Department official from Bengal.
While Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has laid stress on “social auditing” to judge the performance of the States, Bengal Panchayat Minister Subroto Mukherjee says the expenditure level of a State in implementing job guarantee schemes is the “most important yardstick in analysing the performance of a State.” In that case, “our expenditure level is excellent”, he maintains.
According to the report, Tripura is on the top of the table providing 87 days of job. Mizoram comes second with 73.24 days while Sikkim comes third with 60.79 days, the report says. While Kerala is placed at number four with about 57 days Tamil Nadu is in the fifth slot by creating 54.83 days of job.
Bengal has been able to create only 33.66 days of job in the last year, the report says. Curiously, even Maoist-hit States like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and Odisha have performed better than Bengal with 45, 39.50 and 34.11 days respectively. Meghalaya has created 44 days of job, the report says.
Incidentally, Mamata Banerjee had claimed in her earlier meetings at Binpur and Jhargram in Jangal Mahal that her Government had outperformed all other States by topping the list of the NREGA scheme.
At a public rally in Binpur in West Midnapore she went on record claiming that after clearing the first milestone of ensuring 100-days’ job, her Government was planning to go for 200-days’ job in the State leading Ramesh to call her claims as “typical Mamata bombast.”
According to sources in the Writers’ Buildings, the Bengal Government had yet to complete its social auditing in the wake of completion of 100-days’ work scheme in a year. “The Government will conduct such auditing afterwards,” an official said conceding social auditing was one of the prime parameters to judge the parameters of a Government.
District-wise, while the Chief Minister had earlier said that the Government was planning to go for 200-days’ work, the State Government sources said that the Maoist-hit Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore districts had recorded only 38, 37 and 28 days job in the past year.
The Chief Minister who had earlier claimed that her Government had completed 90 per cent of the total works promised by her before coming to power, also claimed that her Government had dug 55,000 tanks in two years against the target of 52,000 tanks in five years.
“Her claims are all poll gimmicks. She wants to win the panchayat polls by muscle power and by selling lies but the people have started to see through her lies,” CPI(M) leader Md Salim said.