Dimapur, June 3 (MExN): Nagaland’s Congress party today intensified its attack on the NPF-led DAN government for the “reverse implementation” of the rural employment scheme National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the state. Expressing deep conviction that there is corruption in the way the NREGS in being implemented, the Congress has send out a call to all villagers and the rural people to take a stand. Another statement from the Congress, this time the party’s NREGS cell, listed details of how the ‘overall scenario’ of NREGA implementation in Kohima district.
The Opposition has said that in Nagaland, “the overall scenario of NREGS implementation is just the reverse” and at the ground-level the NREGS program is a mere farce. “This failed noble pro-villagers project is basically not because of the feebleness or ignorance of NREGS Act which is a Parliament enactment law or provision of NREGA operational guidelines for implementing NREGS program by the DAN Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, MLAs and Rural Development Officials but because of their sole ulterior motive of misusing NREGS funds for themselves by flouting and twisting NREGA rules in their own convenience is the sum total result that makes the job card holders (villagers) high and dry.”
The NREGS cell of the Kohima District Congress Committee has found gross irregularities and corruption committed ‘by the concerned authorities’. The DCC cell highlighted some of their findings. The Congress pointed out its findings: the ruling party’s leaders and workers, Rural Development officers and staff and some village NREGS authorities have ‘created havoc and chaos’ – despite its onset in 2007 till date in Kohima district, ‘the villagers still do not know whether their job cards are black or white,’ the Congress said.
The Congress said there is an inflated and abnormally high figure of NREGS Job Cards in all the villages; innumerable bogus and fictitious names adorn the Job Card records of all the villages; double or triple entries of same person in many Job Card lists; from a single house separate Job Cards are enlisted and maintained in the name of husband, wife, sons and daughters (NREGA prescribed only one Job Card for one household (one family); random enrolment of government servants and other privileged and high and affluent people (a violation of NREGA rules); willful and deliberate enrolment in the Job Card records without obtaining prior consent of the people; random use of machineries (bulldozers and JCBs) which is banned under NREGS; 40% of NREGS fund earmarked for procurement of materials (or Materials Component) has been grossly misused; total figure of Job Cards in the villages under NREGS program exceeds far more than Government and district administrations’ households of the villages.
The Congress further alleged that NREGS work orders were issued to private individuals mostly under the infamous “VIP/MLA quota” which the DAN Government and RD department termed as ‘general work’ (convergence). These private individuals have mostly drawn cash without executing works, the Congress said.
In the Kohima town urban area, village Job Cards were “hijacked” by RD officers and used in 9 – Kohima Town A/C (urban area) for implementing Kohima town schemes, projects and drew NREGS fund by naming the program as “general work” (“VIP quota”). The Congress also said bogus NREGS work orders were issued by “one BDO”.
The Congress has urged villagers (Job Card holders) to keep strict vigilance on the way NREGS is being implemented. “As for DCC, Kohima we vouch to pursue the NREGS issue till the entire truth about NREGS mis-management and mis-use comes to the full knowledge of general public,” the party added.
