Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

  • 29/08/2011

  • Central Chronicle (Bhopal)

Bhopal : On one hand MP Audit and Financial Management Software has been evolved for bringing about transparency in Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to ensure timely payment to labourers and on the other hand arrangements have been made for making payments to labourers within a radius of 5 kilometres. Cent percent payment of wages to labourers under MNREGA has been ensured through banks or post offices. Banking Service Area Approach has been made the medium for payment of wages to labourers within a radius of 5 kilometres. It will be responsibility of banks to ensure payments to labourers in their respective service areas. In the areas where banks do not have their branches, the service area banks will make payments to labourers through mobile banking, biometric ATM, business correspondence or kiosk. In connection with payment to labourers state-level coordination banks, Central Bank of India has been instructed to coordinate with other banks of districts. Besides, instructions have also been given to ensure payment to labourers within a radius of 5 kms by coordinating with collectors and managers of lead banks. Superintending engineers, executive engineers, assistant engineers and deputy engineers have been instructed to keep a control over technical works with a view to rectifying delay in process of payments. Superintending engineers have been instructed to hold meetings every month to review departmental works. Besides, they will also put their remarks on site order book during inspection whether construction works are being undertaken as per verification norms. The executive engineers have been instructed to undertake verification of at least one percent works. They have also been instructed to undertake weekly review meetings. Salaries of assistant engineers under MNREGA will be drawn only after his pay data is sent to District Panchayat through executive engineer of Rural Engineering Service. CEO of Janpad Panchayat will draw salaries of deputy engineers under the Janpad only when their pay datas and tour diary is presented to the CEO through assistant engineer. Without these, salaries of deputy engineers and assistant engineers cannot be drawn. A software called Madhya Pradesh Audit and Financial Management has been evolved by Employment Guarantee Council for monitoring works under MNREGA and making information of financial works available to common man easily. With the help of this software, information about financial activities under MNREGA will be available online. According to Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act, officers have been instructed to dispose of disputes and complaints within seven days. If they are unable to dispose of cases, they can forward them to their senior officers while informing Zila Panchayat CEO, collector and divisional commissioner about it. For effective survey and monitoring of Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme along with better implementation, teams of departmental officers will be formed at the divisional level for scrutiny of complaints. The investigation teams constituted to undertake surprise checks investigate demand of work and its fulfillment, verification of muster roll, availability of job cards with concerning families and labourers, dimension and verification of construction works by technical staff, utilisation of funds and delay in transfer of funds, quality of work, information about work-related facilities. Action has been taken against two thousand officers and employees, two collectors, six CEOs of Zila Panchayats, 109 CEOs of Janpad Panchayats, 36 sub-divisional officers, 31 assistant engineers, 208 deputy engineers, 20 Panchayat coordinators and 14 gram sahayaks are found guilty of irregularities under MNREGA.