Sir,
Please refer to the news”Bail denied to ADC……… and five others….”published in Daily Excelsior on April 22,2018 wherein it was reported that some senior officials of the Rural Development Department were involved in a big financial scandal in the MGNREGA.
To many people it may look surprising that the officers of the rank Additional Deputy Commissioner are involved in the scam.But to my personal knowledge and experience, there is nothing surprising in it.It is a matter of fact that foundation of MGNREGA is resting upon the practice of bunglings. Infact,it is an employment guarantee scheme which guarantees the employment of 100 days to every unemployed person in a year with the wages@Rs184, per day against the prevailing market rate of wages@Rs500/ per day.No body would like to work with the wages@Rs 184,but in practice, the labourers are paid wages@Rs500 against Rs 184/as fixed by the Government.The difference so created in the bill is adjusted by manipulating the number of labour days.It is not a secret.It is done officially and is known well to all concerned authorities.Besides, engagement of machines is not allowed in the scheme, but in practice the machines are engaged in every construction work.In this way, the concerned officials can’t be blamed for bunglings.
The foundation of the Rural Development Department are deeply rooted in corruption and all including VLWs, BDOs and ACDs/ADCs seem to be the birds of the same feather. In order to curb corruption in Rural Development Department, the first step is to revise the daily wages from Rs 182/per day to Rs 500/per day so that the concerned authorities may have no official excuse for manipulating daily attendance of the labour.
Besides, the monitoring and evaluation of the various works need to be made worth some measurements so that bunglings could be minimised.
Yours etc….
O P Sharma (AMO Rtd)
Bagnoti, Nowshera
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