(News) Poor dalits of Bundelkhand yet to benefit from NREGA, claims NGO

Poor dalits of Bundelkhand yet to benefit from NREGA, claims NGO

A New Delhi based NGO, Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS), has alleged that the implementation of NREGA in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh is marred by corruption and irregularities. The NGO is in the forefront of exposing irregularities in the rural job guranatee scheme and had prepared reports on malpractices in the scheme in several states. Later, it filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court in 2007 alleging misappropriation of the funds allocated under the NREGA and seeking its proper implementation for the benefit of poor. Last week, a three member Bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice K. G. Blakrishnan, hearing the petition, expressed concern over implementation of NREGA. The bench said that several projects under the scheme were failing as the funds allocated for them either remain unutilised or in many cases money landed up in wrong hands.

Now CEFS has brought out another report on how extremely poor and marginalised are kept out of the scheme in Bundelkhand, considered one of the poorest regions of India. CEFS has claimed that it conducted a survey in the districts of Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi and Lalitpur of Bundelkhand region during November- ecember 2009, and found “massive corruption and serious irregularities in the implementation of the rural job scheme.” "We came across a large number of poor Dalit households who have not received even a single day of NREGS work in last four years or received it only for a few days," CEFS Director Parshuram Ray claimed.

"We found that in the implementation of NREGA in Bundelkhand there has only been guarantee of corruption, unemployment, poverty, hunger and humiliation..." the CEFS report mentions. The CEFS claimed that during the survey, it found that "very few" villagers had even seen muster rolls in the five districts. "Muster rolls are never available at the work sites," Mr Ray said, adding there was "little transparency and accountability in the implementation of the Act in these districts."

The CEFS report contended that neither gram sabhas were organised in any of the villages surveyed by it nor social audit of the NREGS projects conducted. "We were told by the villagers that NREGS related gram sabhas and social audits are conducted only in the official records and not on the ground," Parshuram Ray said. As per the Act, social audit has to be conducted by gram sabhas at least once in six months and its announcement be made 30 days in advance. With such severe charges against the much publicised scheme, it will be interesting to see how various state governments and the centre respond in the Supreme Court in the ongoing case.

Courtesy: D-sector.org