Social audit for NREGS begins in Malda

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Dec. 25: Social audit for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has begun in Malda to make people aware of it. The rural team, comprising of local youths, will exercise the social audit and see whether people had applied for job cards or not. It will also look into the adult members of the family, especially the women members. There was a discrepancy between the number of workers who worked on a particular work as shown in the block office records and the muster rolls which are available with the gram panchayat. In many cases, though job cards are not transferable, yet people get work by being able to manage other job cards. Nobody objects to this practice. The district nodal officer said that through social audit, local problems, irregularities and discrepancies would be sorted out at the panchayat and the block level. “In case of any major violation in the implementation of the NREGA Act, we would conduct a hearing of the case at the district level to sort out the problem,” the nodal officer said. The social audit would also examine the muster rolls which reflect higher amounts being paid to the labourers. This is a common way of embezzlement of funds. In some places, it has been revealed that signatures and thumb impressions have been fudged on a large scale. Even people who can sign have put thumb impressions on the muster rolls. In practice, the participation of women and the physically challenged is not satisfactory in Malda.