Jharkhand fails to utilise NREGA funds

Jharkhand government in last three financial years failed to utilise funds received from the Centre for implementation of the schemes under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The state had surrendered a sum of Rs 1,444.80 crore on this account during last three fiscals.

The state Governor, K Sankaranarayanan, in a meeting with the deputy commissioners (DCs) on September 12 disapproved of the administrative laxity and lacuneas in the implementation of NREGA funds.

The Governor said that it was sad and shameful that only Rs 1,000 core out of Rs 2,400 crore allotted for implementation of NREGA was spent during the last financial year. He asked the district heads to utilise the allocated funds of Rs 3,300 crore for the current financial year.

Meanwhile, the Centre has asked the states to give their opinions on the model mooted during a high-level meeting with the state’s NREGA commissioners and rural development officials chaired by the Centre’s NREGA Director Nitin Chandra in New Delhi on September 14. Some states proposed to converge the Centre’s NREGA scheme with the state’s labour-oriented developmental schemes.

According to Jharkhand’s NREGA commissioner SK Barnwal, the convergence would give result in saving of huge state resources and ensure optimal use of funds available. Since NREGA was a demand-driven scheme for which fund would never be a problem and would help the state to draw big schemes that was otherwise not possible as departmental schemes were based on allocation.