Four southern States Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana have reported the highest number of cases of financial misappropriation in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
According to Minister of State for Rural Development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, of the total 4.92 lakh cases reported across the country, those reported from the four States accounted for 4.18 lakh. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu reported the highest number of 1.59 lakh cases of financial misappropriation each followed by Karnataka (59,290 cases) and Telangana (40,562 cases), the Minister informed Parliament in a written reply to a query raised.
She said the corresponding misappropriation of funds was to the tune of ₹337.43 crore in AP, ₹246.22 crore in Tamil Nadu, ₹184.17 crore in Karnataka and ₹85.38 crore in Telangana. Of the total cases, total number of decided cases in the four States, AP accounted for 1.11 lakh, Tamil Nadu (1.23 lakh), Karnataka (38,809) and Telangana (40,505).
The Minister informed Parliament that the Ministry initiated various steps to strengthen the social audit system under the MGNREGS in the States and Union Territories. Auditing standards had been issued and States/UTs were advised to establish independent social audit units (SAU), conduct social audit as per audit of scheme rules, 2011 and training of village resource persons for conducting social audit. States/UTs had been advised to recruit adequate manpower under SAU to ensure the quality of social audit.
For bringing significant improvement in the implementation of MGNREGS, it was decided to set a few pre-requisites for taking up annual action plan and labour budget of States/UTs for financial year 2022-23. These included creation of independent SAU under an independent director, auditing of all gram panchayats that had not been socially audited and ensuring that at least 50 per cent of the recoveries due, as brought under social audit to be made. Labour budgets of the States/UTs were approved keeping their performance on social audit in view.
