MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT (SHRI SUDARSHAN BHAGAT)
(a): Yes, Madam. The Ministry of Rural Development has recently sanctioned the first tranche of financial assistance to Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh for conducting social audit under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for the financial year 2014-15. The details are given as under:-
S.No. Name of State Amount of first tranche of financial assistance for conducting social audit under MGNREGS (in Rs.)
1. Sikkim 5,94,000 2. Tamil Nadu 15.18,000 3. Chhattisgarh 13,86,000
Further, releases to Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Gujarat and Nagaland is underway.
(b): No, Madam.
(c): There are following provisions in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to monitor and check the misuse of funds:
(1) Social Audit: Social audit of all expenditure and all the works executed is a statutory commitment under the Act. In order improve the Social Audits, a Special Project is being implemented under which, the Ministry is funding the deployment of social audit resource personnel upto District level. The project will be operational during 2014-17 and will ensure the social audit of MGNREGS works is conducted as per Audit of Schemes Rules, 2011.
(2) Grievance Redressal Mechanism: The Act provides for establishment of Ombudsman at district level for expeditions redressal of grievances on the implementation of MGNREGS in the States/UTs. The Ombudsman can take suo moto cognizance of irregularities in the Scheme.
(3) State Quality Monitor (SQM): MGREGA Operational Guidelines provide for deployment of retired Chief/Executive Engineers for quality inspection of works implemented under the Scheme.SQM can make use of random sampling or stratified sampling in selecting the sample for quality inspection.
(4) National Level Monitors (NLM): If a complaint is prime-facie substantiated by documentary evidence, third party institutional NLMs are deputed to enquire into the allegations & issues raised in the NLM report are resolved through State Governments.
(d): Mobile Monitoring Systems will empower Gram Panchayats and implementation agencies with live data from the worksites and allow an online and real-time updation of database for complete transparency.
