Vijaywada, March 14: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has not been able to achieve its objective mainly due to corruption, ad hoc appointments and lack of accountability.
The Central government has laid the responsibility of implementing this scheme on the shoulders of field assistants and technical assistants appointed on ad hoc basis with meagre salaries of Rs. 1,500 and Rs. 5,000 a month respectively. Consequently, the field level staff have allegedly joined hands with local political leaders and exploiting the scheme to fill their pockets.
The scheme envisaged that all wage seekers in the village should be given job cards and their accounts opened in village post office. Gram Sabha should identify works relating to development of land assigned to Dalits or small and marginal farmers, plantation of eucalyptus, canal repairs, check dams etc.
The village post master would pay cash to individual workers after verifying their identity and entering payment details in their passbooks.
Leaders of CPI (M) who put pressure on the UPA government to launch the scheme, are now fighting against irregularities in implementation of the scheme, said Nagaboyina Ranga Rao, Prakasam district party secretary.
He explained that irregularities started from issuing of job cards.
There are as many bogus job cards as genuine cards in every village. Gram sabha is not held in any village and it is the field assistants who select the work. They complete the work in a ham-handed manner engaging 20-25 genuine workers but claim bills with 200 musters.
Forged signatures
They submit bills with forged signatures or thumb impressions. Village post masters pay the amount to field assistants without insisting on physical presence of wage seekers and verifying their identity. They reportedly get a 15-20 per cent cut.
Social audit had became a mockery as persons with tenth class qualification are asked to audit the work. District Water Management Authority officials admit that payments are made in many cases without check measurement. They contend that as there are only 40 engineering consultants working for 56 mandals in the district, it was not possible to conduct check measurement in all cases as the payment has to be made within three days. Field level officials felt that the government should give up target approach to avoid irregularities. Collectors should be given freedom to sanction works only where there is acute need for employment and implement them under supervision of responsible officials.
-Agencies