We have been writing about the sorry state of affairs in the implementation of the national flagship programme called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the state. We had even questioned as to why such a scheme, which facilitates corruption at the grassroots level, should be named after the ‘father of the nation’ Mahatma Gandhi. The departed leader must have been turning in his grave. Surprisingly, the state cabinet has taken up the issue recently. But, whether the state is really serious about proper implementation of the flagship programme or does it have something other than that in its mind is a matter of opinion. Yet, by all accounts, the new Rural Development Minister Francis Ngajokpa seems sincere enough in his utterances and action. We must invoke the sarcastic comment by Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh when he was presented with the Manipur figures with regard to the implementation of NREGS in the state. Manipur is one of the states which have ‘successfully’ implemented the NREGS and it tops among other states of the country. Minister Jairam Ramesh had said that “It is too good to be true.” As of present, there are several complaints and allegations of misappropriation of NREGS funds in the state. Manipur state alone accounts for about Rs 1000 crores a year in NREGS funds. The complaints had come in the forms of press releases, press conferences and court cases. However one of the notable exposures has been through the use of Right to Information Act (RTI) by rural women. As it turned out, only 15 percent of the allocated funds reach the rural people while the rest is being swindled by politicians and employees of the concerned department which had come out in the open through RTI queries. There are still hundreds of ignorant people whose job cards and pass books had been withheld by the Zilla Parishad members, Pradhans and Ward members. By withholding the job cards and the pass books the elected representatives takes out the money meant for the beneficiaries by forging signatures. In fact, NREGS was responsible for the demise of work culture in the rural areas of the valley and hill areas of state. Before the advent of NREGS, there was a work culture based on hard work and better yields. Sadly it has now been transformed into a ‘work culture’ where you get wages even if you do not work at all (if you are willing to pay a sizeable percentage to the local representatives). Another negative outcome has been that, through devolution of powers the flagship programme schemes has successfully created a new class of corrupt representatives at the village and regional level, which is why we have been seeing huge election related expenditure in the ensuing Panchayat elections. The NREGs has become a honeycomb for the newly emerging grassroots leaders. Recently, the Deputy Commissioner of Imphal West issued an appeal to the general public to report any case of withholding of job cards and forging of signatures by rural representatives. The Deputy Commissioners had recently been re-designated Executive Officers of DRDA, an agency responsible for ensuring the proper implementation of NREGS funds. The appeal yielded results and following complaints the missing job cards were made available to the real beneficiaries. Manipulation of NREGS money is very easy in areas where the opening of bank accounts of the job card holders is not compulsory. The local representatives distribute the wages of the job card holders at will. Where opening of accounts is compulsory, the representatives withhold the job cards and by forging signatures they pocket the wages. However, the problem is not only of whether the wages are reaching the real job card holders or not. There is the lack of transparency in the so-called work programmes taken up under the NREGS. The process of framing work programmes need to be properly democratised and vetted by involving the main stakeholder which is the general public (not the representatives).
