Guwahati, Jan. 11: The Assam government has cancelled nearly two lakh job cards issued under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme (MGNREGA).
Minister of state (independent charge) for panchayat and rural development (P&RD) Naba Kumar Doley today said the department has started verification of job cards issued under MGNREGA in the state and so far, 1.98 lakh job cards were cancelled after anomalies had been detected in them during the verification process.
Doley said several reasons, including demise of the card holders, drawal of wages using someone else's card and migration of the card holder forced them to cancel the cards.
The number of the job cards cancelled could go up further as till date 68.48 per cent cards have been verified.
A performance audit carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for 2011-12 had detected several anomalies in the implementation of the MGNREGA scheme in Assam.
The CAG had found instances of generation of excess job cards and fraudulent payment of wages through fake job cards in the state.
"P&RD department is establishing a social audit unit (SAU) to conduct social audit of MGNREGA and other rural development schemes in the state. The department is in the process of recruitment of social auditors for SAU on a contractual basis. The recruitment process will be completed within the first week of February," Doley said.
The minister said in the current year, 11.70 lakh households were provided employment under MGNREGA and 43.89 lakh job cards were issued.
"In 2016-17, under MGNREGA schemes, Assam has utilised Rs 1267.16 crore, which is Rs 638.68 crore more than the corresponding period in the previous year. Similarly, total number of mandays generated in 2016-17 is 317.92 lakh, which is 8.99 lakh more than mandays generated in the same period last year," Doley said.
MGNREGA is a flagship programme of the central government that aims at providing livelihood security to the rural poor.
In Assam, MGNREGA was introduced in 2006-07 in seven districts in the first phase. The coverage was extended to six more districts in the second phase in 2007-08 and all the districts of the state were covered by the end of 2008-09.
