Bhubaneswar, May 24: Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has drawn Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s attention to the irregularities detected by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in the implementation of the rural job scheme in the state.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS) aims to provide at least 150 guaranteed days of wage employment.
In a letter to Naveen, Ramesh has stated: “The CAG carried out a performance audit of MGNREGS in Odisha and has found some serious irregularities. I hope that the observations made by the CAG and the recommendations contained in the Performance Audit will receive your personal consideration.”
The CAG, in its report, observed that the weak institutional arrangements, deficient planning, delay in payment of wages, wasteful expenditure on abandoned and incomplete works, creation of non-durable assets and lack of adequate awareness about the scheme had affected its implementation.
The CAG has also pointed out that the financial management of the scheme was ineffective.
“We have 14 VIP complaints out of which we still await action taken reports of eight of them from the state. These complaints pertain to serious irregularities in MNREGS implementation in the districts of Jajpur, Nuapada, Puri, Keonjhar, Jharsuguda and Sambalpur,” wrote Ramesh.
The Union minister added that there were 48 general complaints, of which the Centre is still awaiting action taken reports on 12 districts of Bhadrak, Deogarh, Balangir, Kendrapada, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj, Sambalpur and Puri.
Urging Naveen to take a look at the CAG report, Ramesh said the Centre had released another Rs 334.60 crore for the implementation of the rural job scheme in Odisha. “This is in addition to the Rs 183 crore that was released last month. With this, the entire first tranche (portion) of Central assistance in 2013-14 is complete,” he said.
Reacting to the letter, panchayati raj minister Kalpataru Das said: “Whenever we have detected any irregularity, we have taken action. We will try to plug all holes for proper implementation of the MNREGS .”
