Karnataka: Irregularities Worth Rs 410 Crore Uncovered In NREGA Employment Scheme, Claims Report

An audit into the NREGA accounts across 467 gram panchayats in Karnataka has reported leakage worth Rs 37.68 crore. In more than 92,000 cases of irregularity, Rs 373 crore has been stalled due to objections filed by the audit, Deccan Herald reported.

The issues are multifaceted. Some of them are improper payments for work completed, wrong work cards, excessive payments etc.

Most number of irregularities are reported in Ramanagara, home to assembly Constituencies of Channapatna and Kanakapura. The former is represented by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and the latter, by Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar.

Since several districts in the state are facing drought, the government had earlier advanced the NREGA scheme to 150 days, as opposed to 100. All the labourers are provided a pay of Rs 236 per day.

In the last five years, irregular payments worth Rs 113 crore have allegedly been pointed out by the auditors.

Deccan Herald quoted Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister Krishna Byre Gowda as saying, “All works taken up under NREGA have to be geo-tagged and photographs uploaded to verify that the work was actually done.”

“But when you’re doing such a large and diverse programme where millions of works are going on, there may be a few (leaks) here and there. While we don’t want leaks or misuse, we also don’t want to stifle the system.”