• Wages to be paid through banks and post offices
• CAG slams Maharashtra’s employment guarantee scheme

Wages to be paid through banks and post offices

The Ministry of Rural Development has asked all states and union territories to ensure payment of wages under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) through banks and post office accounts of the NREGA workers. It has been advised that the banking and post office network should be extensively used for opening accounts of NREGA workers, and to make arrangements for payment of wages through these. So far, 1.62 crore accounts have been opened out of 3.42 crore families who have been given jobs under NREGA. In Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Kerala all families receive payment of wages under the scheme through their accounts.

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CAG slams Maharashtra’s employment guarantee scheme

A recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has indicted Maharashtra’s employment guarantee scheme (EGS) for falling short on several fronts: planning, financial management, registration of labourers, selection and execution of works, payment of wages, and monitoring.

The 2006-07 CAG report says the scheme has not met its objective of poverty alleviation. People in ‘C’ class municipalities have been left out and budgets prepared for the scheme have not been based on demand. Moreover, registration of labourers is incomplete, works have been lying unfinished for years, and payment to labourers is pending or has not been in accordance with the Minimum Wages Act. Monitoring was deficient, as committees that had to be set up for this purpose do not exist.

The CAG pointed out that district collectors did not prepare manpower budgets to assess employment needs. This resulted in unrealistic plans, which in turn, resulted in annual expenditure being just 19 per cent of the funds that these plans demanded. Although an amount of Rs10, 818.44 crore has been collected under the employment guarantee fund (EGF) (which funds the scheme through professional tax and other taxes collected from citizens), only Rs 4,677.24 crore was spent on the EGS in the year under review.

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