Star News Agency

New Delhi. The Minister of State in the Ministry of Rural Development Shri Pradeep Jain “Aditya” today informed the Rajya Sabha that Complaints have been received in this Ministry regarding irregularities in implementation of NREGA. These complaints mainly relate to issuance of job cards to ineligible persons, fudging of muster rolls, delay in payment of wage to NREGA workers. The complaints received in this Ministry were sent to the concerned State Governments for taking action in accordance with the Act provision. As per the reports available from the State Governments, FIRs have been lodged with the Police and disciplinary action has been taken against the officials against whom the charges have been established. The following steps have been taken by the Ministry to minimize corruption under NREGA:-

(i) Orders dated 7.9.2009 have been issued directing all State Governments for setting up of the office of Ombudsman at district level for redressal of grievances in a time bound manner.

(ii) A Web enabled Management Information System (MIS) (www.nrega.nic.in) has been made operational which places all critical parameters such as job cards, muster rolls, wage payments, number of days of employment provided and works under execution online for monitoring and easy public access for information. More than 8.4.crore job cards and 2.4. crore muster rolls have been up loaded on the web site.

(iii) Wage disbursement to NREGA workers through Banks/Post Office accounts has been made mandatory to ensure proper disbursement of wages to NREGA workers. 8.13 crore bank/post office accounts have been opened so far.

(iv) The Ministry has accorded utmost importance to the organization of Social Audits by the Gram Panchayats and issued instructions to the States to make necessary arrangements for the purpose. Modifications have been made in para 13 of Schedule-I of the Act to provide for procedures on conducting social audits. The Ministry has issued instructions to the State Governments for enforcement of the new social audit provisions under NREGA

(v) Independent Monitoring by eminent citizens has been approved.

(vi) District level Vigilance and Monitoring Committees have been set up for monitoring of rural development programmes including NREGA.