BHUBANESWAR: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) implementation in Odisha is a pathetic story of lack of administrative monitoring right at the top which triggered a consequent ineffectiveness at the ground level.
During the five-year period of 2012-17, as many as 63.98 lakh households out of 83.22 lakh registered themselves and availed employment for 34.63 crore mandays. A closer inspection, though, reveals that 28 per cent households (out of those registered) demanded work in 2012-13 and highest demand was 37 per cent in 2016-17.
In many of the test-checked districts, it ranged between 16 per cent and 64 per cent, says the annual CAG report. The flagship scheme was marred by low attendance as only 86 to 91 per cent of those who demanded work availed employment. When it came to creation of 100 days employment, only two to nine per cent households could get it.
The CAG report says the low registration could be attributed to the fact that the State Government could not ensure timely payment of wages. At least 27 per cent beneficiaries stated during interviews that they were not interested in work because of late payment of wages.
Another 25 per cent said they were not interested because there was no provision for work for women and elderly. Half of them said wage was low compared to other works which is why they were not interested.
Another reason was non-payment of wages due to rejection of fund transfer order by banks. Though the State Government had to adopt electronic fund management system to avoid delay in payment, the audit found that during the five year period, at least 9.5 lakh transactions out of a total 338.46 lakh were rejected because of invalid system code, closed bank accounts and non-tallying of account description. It amounted to a whopping Rs 91.46 crore in terms of wages. The rejections kept on rising but to no avail.
What also revealed non-verification of bank accounts is the fact that out of 162.96 lakh beneficiaries, 83.66 lakh in the State had no bank accounts at all. Similarly, as many as 20.42 lakh accounts were found frozen because of payments could not be made.
The problem was right at the top because MGNREGA stipulated constitution of State Employment Guarantee Council (SEGC) whose job was to advise the government in implementation and review of monitoring and grievance redressal.
In Odisha, the SEGC was formed in 2007 under the chairmanship of Chief Minister. The body was reconstituted in 2012 after a delay of 23 months and again in 2016, after another delay of seven months.
Though it was to meet at least once in six months, since its constitution in 2007, SEGC met just four times against the mandated 18. Why? Because Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was not available. As a result, annual administrative reports were delayed and grievances piled up.