Guwahati, July 17: Disclosing the reports of CAG, at a press conference in Guwahati, addressed by Accountant General, C H KHARSHIING, serious anomalies were seen in the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) for 2012 in Assam said that everything is wrong with it.
Starting from misappropriation of funds to issuing fake cards, a lot of anomalies have kept the ambitious project far from being a success story in the state.
The Performance Audit of the scheme for the years 2007-08 to 2011-12 revealed that the state government has failed to ensure the primary objectives of livelihood security to each rural population by providing 100 days guaranteed employment in a year.
During the last five years, 100 days employment could be provided to only 3.54 lakh workers against the demand from 88.15 lakh households due to improper and ineffective planning without any strategy to create long term employment generation opportunities, says the report.
The report adds this was coupled with non-utilization of funds optimally, non-transparent process of registration and issue of job cards and non-payment of unemployment allowances/compensation to eligible workers etc under the scheme.
Regarding the fake job card issue, in Lakhimpur district alone there are 6,018 such fake cards. The total collection through 796 fake job card holders issued by seven gram panchayats (GPs) under two blocks in Lakhimpur district is Rs 32.82 lakh. Another two districts Kamrup and Darrang were also found guilty of issuing 7,776 excess job cards that were either used by non-beneficiaries or by double card holders.
There was no effective and transparent process of registration of households in compliance with the scheme guidelines. There were also deficiencies in maintaining, accounting and issue of job cards which resulted in generation of double/fake job cards leading to fraudulent payment, the reports says.
The report also recommends the state government to take appropriate measures for proper implementation of the scheme. (SP News)
