52.02 days of employment generated under MGNREGA: CAG report

Under the MGNREGA scheme, 52.02 days of employment was generated as against 100 days guaranteed in the rural employment Act, according to a CAG report.

The performance audit of the activities carried out under the scheme during the period 2012-13 fiscal to 2016-17 fiscal in selected districts also revealed that the annual development plan and labor budget were not approved timely and quorum for approval by the Gram Sabha was not fulfilled.

The report was tabled in the state Legislative Assembly Wednesday.

"Average employment provided in the state was only 52.02 days per household. Overall 15.82 percent muster rolls remained with zero attendance and attendance of workers was not marked on a daily basis. Pending liabilities of wages and material was Rs 704.37 crore," the report said.

"Labour amenities and other entitlement guaranteed to the workers were not being provided except water facility. A sum of Rs 628.89 crore was not recouped towards excess material component, person days, administrative cost etc.," it said.

Under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act which was made applicable from February 2006 and was renamed as "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act" (MGNREGA) in October 2009, at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year is provided to any rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work on demand.

It was also noted that no door to door survey was conducted, job cards were not renewed, workers were not given receipts for their work demand and the work provided to disabled persons was only for 29 to 36 days.

Overall 37.05 percent works were incomplete and there were numerous deficiencies in the construction of durable assets, the report said.

The CAG recommended that the state government should analyze the reason of low convergence and consider policy changes if required so that durable and sustainable assets are also created with the available resources of other programmes/schemes.

Out of 33 districts, eight were selected for the performance audit on the basis of risk categorization of the districts as high, medium and low based on expenditure, number of households to whom job cards were issued, number of registered workers, number of active workers and number of works started during the period 2012-13 to 2016-17.

Banswara, Barmer and Dungarpur districts were selected from a high-risk category, Bhilwara, Jodhpur, and Nagaur were selected from medium risk category and Jaipur and Jalore were selected from a low-risk category.