Hyderabad, February 3: The state government on Wednesday mooted the introduction of biometric identity cards for labourers and giving powers to the district Collectors to punish corrupt officers who are found guilty of resorting to malpractices in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Adopting a stern attitude, Rural Development Minister Dokka Manikya Varaprasad Rao told media persons at the Secretariat on Wednesday that officials resorting to frauds or irregularities in the welfare scheme works distribution and remittances to the workers would not be spared. “Those found guilty would be punished,” he asserted.
Mr Varaprasad Rao revealed that a decision to this effect has been taken and district Collectors would be ordered to punish the corrupt officers.
He stated that at the implementation level, the ground level authorities were coming in the way of distribution of assets or wages as deserved by the labourers.
For this reason the government envisaged introduction of biometric identity for labourers for claiming their due. This is being done in order to do away with malpractices by the officials concerned at the grass-root level, he added.
Mr Varaprasad Rao disclosed that to lay a road of one km costing roughly Rs 1,000, material and labour cost was around 60 percent and the remaining was swallowed by the contractors. This, he said, led to the quality of the road suffering.
Similarly the poor farmer suffered not because of poor MSP or less of remunerative price for his produce. Farmers suffered losses due to spurious seeds – 20 percent, floods – 40 percent, irregularities by officials concerned 20 percent, due to labourers – 7 percent.
The farmer was unable to cope up with this existing onslaught by the nature’s fury coupled with large-scale malpractices, the Minister opined.
To stem the simmering discontent or to stem the corrupt officials’ advances a Central Law was very much required he opined.
The Parliament must enact a Law to ensure spot punishment to the advantage of the farmers, Mr Varaprasad Rao stated.
The Minister exhorted the need to be armed with a Law to ensure foolproof implementation of programmes and to protect the interests of poor farmers.
The Minister reeled out data in support of the government’s claim that Andhra Pradesh ranked first for implementing the NREGS with 61 lakh house-holds provided work and 32 crore Mandays generated with a release of Rs 8000 crore including the central share apart from an expenditure of Rs 4899 crore.
Another unique feature is social audit whose teams monitor the programme effectively. So far, Rs 98 crore was objected by the social audit, Rs 21 crore recovered, 7790 officials dismissed, 424 suspended, 553 cases booked and 2586 departmental enquiries initiated.
INN