Ranchi, Nov. 8: Rural development minister Ainosh Ekka took it upon himself today to save the government from further embarrassment on its dismal performance on NREGA by ensuring that a villager’s dues were cleared for services under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

A day after State NREGA Watch, a group of NGOs monitoring the implementation of the UPA government’s flagship job scheme in Jharkhand, released a damning report about corrupt practices that had seeped into the system, the minister also admitted there were serious anomalies in the way the scheme was being run in the state.

Ekka’s intervention led the BDO of Kanke, Sanjay Ambasta, to personally hand over a cheque of Rs 25,000 to Sankar Munda who had been asked to work on an irrigation well under NREGA but was denied payment.

“The block administration had been dilly-dallying and not releasing the money due to me,” said Munda, a resident of Kokodoro village in Kanke.

Ekka’s initiative today was the first by a minister of Jharkhand ever since a social audit of NREGS, conducted by a team headed by renowned economist Jean Dreze, described Jharkhand’s implementation of the scheme as “worst” in the country.

“The NREGA is not a holy cow. There are corrupt practices in its implementation. When I visit villages, a number of villagers narrate how block and village-level employees fleece money from them on the rural job scheme,” Ekka said at today’s public meeting organised jointly by Poorest Area Civil Society (PACS) and Manthan Yuva Sansthan.

“Though villagers complain about irregularities, they do not give them to us in writing. Unless they specific instances of corruption, we cannot take proper action against erring government officers,” added the minister.

Yesterday, on the first day of a three-day convention on the issue, Dreze detailed how muster rolls were being tampered with and post offices were opening fake bank accounts to siphon money meant for the state’s poorest of the poor.

Jharkhand Swashan Manch, a group of several NGOs, also revealed its findings after conducting a social audit of the scheme in 500 villages of 165 gram panchayats across the state.“Some villagers complained that government officials were not entertaining job applications from the villagers even though, as per NREGS norms, they were bound to,” alleged Sudhir Pal, a member of Jharkhand Swashan Manch. Similar findings were reported at another meeting today at the Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS).

“Some villagers complained their applications were not being accepted by officials. They are simply told to come back when work was available under scheme,” alleged Gurjit, a member of the State NREGA Watch.