Bogus work, forged bills in MGNREGS irregularities go beyond Bengal: Reports

According to NLM guidelines, the Rural Development Ministry can depute NLMs in three conditions— regular monitoring of major schemes, special monitoring of an individual scheme and in cases of complaints or enquiries. A special monitoring of MGNREGS was conducted in three phases during 2022-23 across the country, three separate reports of which have been compiled by Delhi-based CMI Social Research Centre.

The first report of the special monitoring of MG-NREGS by NLMs, finalised in January 2022, gives details of onsite verification. The report states, “The selection of Gram Panchayat (GP) for this Special Monitoring was done at the Ministry level however the works to be verified were to be identified by NLM Teams on a random basis. Largely, in almost all the districts, the assets created under the works verified were found existing on ground.”

However, the report highlights that of 55 MGNREGA works selected at random from the NLMs in Rajasthan’s Jhalawar district, 23 were found to be “not existing”. “NLM report for district Jhalawar (Rajasthan) has some very startling observations in this regard. The NLM Teams in 12 GPs have verified 55 MGNREGA works, selected randomly and out of them 23 works were found ‘not existing’.

Gravel Road Construction found missing – Churu (Rajasthan)

NLM has observed that most of these works were Water Conservation and Water Harvesting activities like earthen check dams/bunding/pond/desilting of pond etc. whereas some works of other categories were also found not existing,” the report said.

Missing plantation – Gurdaspur (Punjab)

“The NLM findings also suggest that the expenditure incurred on these works was bogus, fake bills have been produced and wages paid to the workers has been siphoned by the functionaries at different levels,” the report said. The report shows two MG-NREGS works were found “missing” on ground in Jalpaiguri,West Bengal.

Works inspected by NLMs in Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) – asset/work missing

“Work sanctioned for plantation was for beneficiary name Shri Nonigopal Sarkar and the NLM Team on visiting the site found that no work has been undertaken. The beneficiary Shri Sarkar was absolutely unaware of the workers named in the muster roll. He accepted that only 18 no. of saplings were provided to him which he intends to plant himself on his field,” noted the report.

Soak pit missing – Banas Kantha (Gujarat)

The second report, finalised in May 2022, noted that out of 6,538 worksites inspected, no work had been initiated at 23 of these. “All of these works have been reported as ongoing or completed as per the MIS,” the report said. Of these 23 works, 6 were in Karnataka, 5 were in Bihar, 4 each in Punjab and Rajasthan, two in West Bengal, and one each in Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand. Citing an example from these 23 missing works, the report noted, Gravel Road Construction found missing…On inspection of the above work site by NLM, it was found that MR [Muster Roll] has been generated on this work and a total of 1993 persondays of employment is booked against which a payment of Rs. 4.31 Lakh has made. It was found that no work/activity has been undertaken on this site. The Village Development Officer and Sarpanch of the GP failed to provide any clarification and admitted that no work has been actually undertaken,” the report said.