Graft mars NREGS work: Govt

JAIPUR: The state government on Tuesday admitted in the Vidhan Sabha that the speedy and time-bound implementation of work under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has suffered due to lack of transparency, corruption, lack of social audit at the start of the programme and lack of supervision of work by senior officials.
Replying to Ramnarayanyan Meena of Congress, rural development minister Bharat Singh said complaints have been received by the government regarding NREGS work.These complaints would now be examined by 53 retired officers who have been appointed as state observers. Since 2006-07, corruption continued unabated due to lack of monitoring of work. Many steps have been taken to address the grievances and complaints and the officials have been given the task to monitor the progress of work and a suggestion box would be put up at the worksite to enable the citizens send their suggestions, he added.
Bharat Singh said that the procurement of the building material required for work is being streamlined and after noticing the loopholes in the implementation of the programme because of lack of manpower it has been decided to appoint 11,315 regular workers to oversee the work. The engineers would be deputed to oversee the progress. Under this programme, computer operators would be deputed in the gram panchayat to keep the records. A foolproof arrangement has been ordered to measure the work undertaken in the land, probe job cards and financial irregularities, he added.