CUTS Centre for Consumer Action Research and Training (CART)

UPA's flagship MNREGA dying in Rajasthan
ZEE news, March 23, 2012

Bundi: The UPA Government's flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is dying in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, the Community Score Card (CSC), a tool for assessing accountability in government projects, has claimed.

The CSC is funded by Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) in South Asian Region and implemented in Rajasthan by social organisation CUTS (Consumer Unity Trust) International.

The data was presented at a state-level dissemination cum advocacy meeting held at Jaipur on March 14, 2012. The data mentioned a drastic decline in the number of families engaged in employment in MNREGS.

The number of families given jobs under the scheme has gone down from 63.69 lakh in 2008-09 to 58.24 lakh in 2010-11 and the same further declined 1.37 lakh till March 7, 2012.

The CSC study data further disclosed that the Rajasthan government could utilise only 50 per cent of the total labour budget demanded for the Financial Year 2010-11 while it was as high as 64 per cent in 2008-2009.

This indicates that half of the money provided by central government remained unspent which could have been utilised for betterment of the state. The state could provide only 52 person days of employment per family in the Financial Year 2010-11 in comparison to 76 person days Financial Year 2008-09.

The total expenditure in MNREGS has also drastically gone down from 6175.55 crore in 2008-09 to 3300.33 crore in 2010-11. All these findings were disseminated in the state level dissemination cum advocacy meeting organised by Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) on March 14, 2012.

Several prominent speakers and the grass root community based organisations from all the 33 districts were present in the dissemination meeting of the project.

The news item can also be viewed at: http://zeenews.india.com/

CART