‘NREGA needs more funds’

MALDA, Jan. 16: In order to spend more of the funds allotted to the 100-days job initiative by the end of this financial year, the commissioner of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in West Bengal, Mr M V Rao, has asked the district administrative officials to send at least Rs 1 crore directly, and in advance, to each block development officer (BDO).

The principal secretary of the pachayat and rural development department, Dr M N Roy, had previously instructed that the funds not be sent to the BDOs directly, asking that the district authorities instead send funds to the gram panchayat's pradhan. However, the commissioner has gone against these instructions, and will be sending funds in advance to the BDOs until the end of this financial year in March. The commissioner had taken the decision after holding discussions in Malda on 14 January with almost all of the panchayat samiti sabhapati, gram panchayat pradhan and district administrative officials in the region.

When an administration official brought attention to Dr MN Roy's instructions, Mr M V Rao reportedly said: “In order to ensure funds allotted to the NREGA are utilised, we have to put the BDOs under pressure to spend the funds in the near future and so increase man-days”. It may be noted that the district has achieved only 15.5 man-days of the 100-days of employment promised within the initiative. An eight-member team from the Assembly Subject Committee for the NREGA came to Malda today and held a meeting with the administrative officials here. The committee members backed the scheme to send funds from the NREGA directly to the BDOs.

The Assembly Subject Committee members today visited the Bhabuk panchayat area to take stock of the situation and check the progress of schemes taken up there under the NREGA. The commissioner of the NREGA in West Bengal, Mr Rao, discovered that no monitoring meeting was held in Malda in the last eight months. He suggested that district officials hold a monitoring meeting twice a month until March 2009, the end of the financial year.

The district nodal officer for NREGA, Mr Ranjit Mandal, said: “We have tabled a note sheet before the Malda district magistrate following the instructions of the NREGA commissioner. After the approval of the district magistrate we will be able to send funds in advance to the BDOs”. Malda was one of the first districts in which the NREGA was announced, and more than Rs.10 crore has been spent on the behalf of 146 gram panchayats. However, of the total funds in state hands, only Rs. 522.13 crore of the Rs. 958.04 crore has been spent. n SNS