Union Minister of State for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said the performance of the previous BJP government in implementing various Centre-sponsored programmes, including Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, in the state was dismal.
He told reporters here on Friday that he took stock of the status of various schemes, including MGNREGS and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. “We are unhappy with the score card of the previous state government in the implementation of these programmes. There are a galore of instances of irregularities, diversion of funds and incomplete works in the implementation of the MGNREGS,” he rued.
He said he was in constant touch with the previous government monitoring the progress of these schemes.
“While the outage on the MGNREGS during 2011-12 accounted for Rs 1,640 crore, the same was reduced to Rs 1,440 crore during 2012-13,” he said.
According to Ramesh, the CAG in its report also made observations on the implementation of various schemes sponsored by the Centre. He said the target of spending under the MGNREGS has been fixed to Rs 2,133 crore for the new government. His Ministry would release a first installment of Rs 774.5 crore for the implementation of the UPA government’s flagship programme.
“With the opening balance of Rs 345 crore, the total amount available with the state government would be around Rs 1,100 crore. With enough fund to spend for the programme, I am not anticipating any more demand for the grants till December-end,” he said.
The Union Minister said despite five premier nationalised banks operating from the state, the banks lent only Rs 1,400 crore for the women self-help groups. But the total lending in Andhra Pradesh is about Rs 8,200 crore, he added.
On implementation of sanitation programmes, he said the performance of Karnataka is poor as compared to the other southern states.
“Kerala has already been declared as an open-defecation free state. Tamil Nadu is set to follow suit by 2015,” said the Minister urging Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to take steps to ensure that Karnataka achieves this feat by 2018.
Informing that the state also lags behind in the implementation of Indira Awas Yojana, he said that only 17 among the 30 districts are eligible to receive the first installment of the Union grants this year, as the other 13 districts are yet to close their previous year’s account.