Some Important Programmes in Livelihoods: Searching for Focus?
37
in line with the changes envisaged in the
scheme. The changes show that in departure
from the past, roads are not prioritised.
Agriculture related works have a large
share of about 70 per cent and afforestation
has a share of 23 per cent of the financial
allocation. There is a conscious attempt to
focus on sustained impact on production,
productivity and vulnerability reduction
arising from climate-related stress.
MoRD has specifically initiated action
on the following aspects to improve per-
formance and worker friendliness of the
NREGS in 2015–16. These are:
•
Protecting entitlements of workers
•
Avoiding delays in payment
•
Conduct of social audit as per the Rules
•
Mobile-based monitoring on pilot basis
•
Expand electronic fund management
system (eFMS) and introduce eFMS in
all gram panchayats
•
Skilling MGNREGA workers under
other compatible schemes
Social audits
Social audit of MGNREGS has been brought
in as an integral part of the scheme so that
community groups and volunteers after
due training are able to verify the work car-
ried out, expenditure incurred, payments
made to workers and other aspects of the
scheme. While the social audit took a while
to gain ground, since the last two years social
auditors seems to have been carrying out a
number of audits. While consolidated infor-
mation is not available, the audit reports are
available in the website of MoRD in an easily
retrievable form. In AP and Telangana, for
example, the social audits have established
that
`
23.1 million have been spent in devia-
tion from the Scheme’s norms and rules
(as agreed by the government). It has been
established that of this,
`
10.3 million have
been misappropriated. This led to 281 FIRs
being filed with the police and termination
of services of more than 7,200 staff. In Bihar,
the social audits found cases of fraudulent
entries in books, measurements recorded in
books being different from actual quantity
of work done and non-maintenance of
books in some cases. In Maharashtra, of the
5,825 works verified, 19 per cent were found
to be deficient. In Tamil Nadu, the people
contacted during the social audit process
had grievances relating to
•
low wages
•
inability to get work when they needed it
•
delayed wage payment
•
issues with bank payments
•
worksite facilities not being provided
•
not being able to get job cards
•
old people and women with children
being discouraged
•
no grievance redressal system
The major findings of social audit across
different works in Tamil Nadu were
•
poor quality of work and poor asset crea-
tion like poor planning, poor selection
of work and poor monitoring, quantity
not commensurating with the wages
disbursed
•
registers not maintained properly or no
updations
•
incomplete and wrong data at
mgnrega.
nic.in
•
significant fake entries and overwriting
in job cards, NMR, etc.
•
discrepancies between job cards, muster
rolls, registers and online data
•
technical staff not visiting the worksites
•
poor documentation like books not
maintained well, no photos in the Asset
Register and no completion of reports.
A major concern is that all states still do
not seem to take social audits seriously. The
latest position regarding social audits put
out by MoRD indicates that out of 28 states,
17 are yet to adhere to the Social Audit Rules.
Inmany states, the processes of recruitment
of personnel for social audits, training, etc.
are ongoing since a long time. The need is for
an early roll-out of social audits and a well
laid out protocol for corrective measures.
The Rural Employment Guarantee
Scheme is a thoughtful legislative effort to
ensure that poor families in rural areas have
