Irregularities galore in NREGS, pension scheme Thursday, 06 February 2020 | AJIT PANDA | NUAPADA

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 A block-level public hearing on MGNREGS and pension schemes was held at Komna on Tuesday.

The Social Audit (SA) team of OSSAAT (Odisha Society for Social Audit and Transparency), an independent organisation formed by the State Government to conduct regular social audit of MGNREG and other Government schemes, presented the findings of the audits they had undertaken for the FY 2018-19.

Several irregularities like money paid to dead people under pension scheme (Rs 98,000 in total), nonpayment of wages to workers under MGNREGS, documents missing from case records of different projects under MGNREGS, noncooperation (not providing case records) by field functionaries of block and other line departments to the SA team, etc., were found.

In some of the case records of works in Bhela Panchayat, the SA team had found that, the bills and vouchers submitted by material suppliers had no GST number. The block level Public Hearing Committee chaired by the Executive Engineer, DRDA directed the BDO, Komna to issue show cause to the concerned officials to explain why action would not be taken against them for violating Government guidelines. It was also decided that the money paid in the name of dead persons would be recovered from the concerned field functionaries who were engaged for distribution of pensions.

The Social Audit team headed by District Social Auditor Milan Pati consisted of  Block Social Auditor, Jaynam Satnami and several women Village Resource Persons. Other members of the block level public hearing Committee like District Panchayat Officer, BDO, ABDO of Komna block, and Assistant Programme Officer, MGNREGA were also present.

Sarpanches of some Panchayats also attended the hearing, but most of the Panchayat Executive officers remained absent in spite of being informed repeatedly to attend the hearing along with relevant official documents. When officials of Horticulture department remained absent, the Forest department officials had arrived without bringing any document.

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