Irregularities in 1,115 NREGA projects; 2,855 notices issued

JAIPUR: Following a statewide surprise inspection, notices have been issued to remove 1,335 mates for irregularities and shortcomings in MGNREGA work in the districts. Notices have also been issued to 1,157 village secretaries/village employment assistants and 363 junior technical assistant (JTAs) for various inadequacies. They have been warned and asked to improve the quality of their work.
A one-day intensive inspection was conducted by rural development department in 33 districts on June 19.Of the 21,414 projects inspected in the state, irregularities were found in 1,115. In all, 4,213 teams carried out inspections including nearly 350 district-level officers. “The irregularities that were found during the inspection included – job cards of the workers were not updated, absence of work site boards in some villages, untrained mates found at a few work sites, absence of shades for workers and unavailability of drinking water in some sites,” said MGNREGA commissioner P C Kishan.
“Shortcomings and irregularities were also found in digging work (layout work of the surface), which was not done as technical norms. Also, in some places the mates were not informing the NREGA workers if their share of work was complete or not,” he said.
Kishan further said, “Action has been taken against the person concerned even if minor irregularities were found. Action has been taken the officials even if Covid protocol/norms have not been followed. Notices have been issued now. If they still don’t improve their work, they could be blacklisted (won’t be allowed to engage in NREGA work) for a year or two. Even though it was a surprise inspection, there hasn’t been a single case where machines were found to be used by the workers.”
“In such a case, action could be taken against the block development officers (BDOs) or programme officers,” he added.