Job scheme: NGO survey finds huge scam in Madhya Pradesh

CEFS director Parshuram Rai claimed officials submitted inflated estimates and used heavy machines like JCBs and dumpers to carry out the works. The money was pocketed by creating fake job cards and bogus entries in muster rolls, the NGO alleged in its report released to the media.

According to the NREGA website, the state was given Rs 3,288 crore and was able to spend Rs 2,891 crore during 2007-08. In other words, 43,46,916 households in MP were given 63 days of average employment during that period, Rai said.

The CEFS survey, however, found that the households got only 10.61 days of average employment during the period of the study and just 2.36 per cent of the households got 100 days of wage employment, which is the scheme’s basic objective. Rai alleged that 65.39 per cent of the households did not receive a single day of employment.

Sarpanches, panchayat secretaries and local activists in Shivpuri, Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur, Dhar and Jhabua districts reportedly told the researchers that money was released only when the authorities concerned received their pound of flesh. Transparency safeguards inbuilt in the scheme are virtually non- existent in Madhya Pradesh, he alleged, adding that not a single villager, labourer or gram panchayat functionary in the sample villages had heard of social audits.

Despite several attempts state Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Rustam Singh was not available for comments. A senior bureaucrat, who was associated with the department till recently, dismissed the report saying: “It’s a big scheme, there may be some irregularities. Action will follow a proper channel.”