Call It A National Waste

• According to NGOs, of the Rs 1,320 crore allotted to the state nearly 60 per cent was pilfered
  
• Nearly 86 per cent of the muster rolls showing payment of wages in 15 districts were forged
  
• No penal action against corrupt officials despite growing evidence of misappropriation
  
• UP delayed setting up guidelines for NREGA for over a year allowing officials to exploit the situation
  
• Social audits, which have proved to be success in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, is non-existent in UP

***

The NGOs say as there is very little monitoring of the district administration, complaints about misappropriation of funds are simply ignored. "Every time anomalies have surfaced the district administration ignores us," says Dr S.P. Singh of Varun. He has been running the NGO in Chandauli district for the last 14 years. He has been meticulously collecting documents that clearly show that funds meant for employment under the NREGs were usurped by officials in the administration. But who's listening?

In Chandauli district, superstar Amitabh Bachchan's TV promos extolling the virtues of UP seem horribly hollow—Outlook's report in its April 9 State of the Nation issue (A ten foot trench, Rs 14. 50) had already offered glimpses of this. At Deokhat village, Dulsari Devi is among the 24 women who have been denied their dues under the NREGs. It has taken her more than a year of struggle with the district authorities to prove that funds meant for them had been misappropriated. But then, despite an order from district magistrate Teerathraj Tripathi in February, no action has yet been taken. The committee he set up to inquire into the pilfering of funds was to present its report within 15 days, but it has not even met once in the last two months.

Dulsari Devi says according to her job card the state is supposed to have paid her Rs 3,016, but she has received only Rs 1,200. Twenty-three other women who were part of the self-help groups set up to augment the income of the poorest of the poor under the NREGs also had similar complaints. Some otheres were shown to have put in many more days of work than they actually had. They also found that payments had been made in fictitious names.

Chandauli district houses a railway junction, is home to BJP president Rajnath Singh and has been officially declared a "Naxal-prabhavit" (Naxal-affected) area. While the district administration is quick to seek more funds under central government-sponsored development schemes, very little has percolated down. Also, "Naxal-affected district" has become a catch phrase to explain every failure.

In neighbouring Sonbhadra, where 69 villages have been identified as Naxal-affected, the story is the same. In the predominantly Dalit village of Raipur the job cards carefully record days of work, but most residents have not been paid their wages. So where did the money go? Most, being illiterate, don't even know that they acknowledged receipt of money through a thumb impression. Across the road in Baniari village, as work on a water tank progresses under the NREGs, the muster rolls are missing. Most people have not been paid in three weeks but continue to toil for want of alternative employment.

A jan sunwai (public hearing) conducted in Lucknow by Asha Parivar is revealing. Activists recorded testimonies of the residents of Jairwara village, Lalitpur district, where a rumour was floated that people will be sent to work in Iraq and Iran under the NREGs. This led to panic among the people who bribed officials Rs 500 to have their NREGs applications withdrawn.

It is shocking instances like these which put a question mark on the functioning of the UP administration, particularly in the rural districts. The NGOs say only an official audit will reveal the true extent of the funds misappropriated. In Chandauli and Sonbhadra, the Outlook team was convinced that the NREGs was being made a mockery of at the expense of the poor. But as the villagers put it, they are not privileged enough to be born in Mulayam's Etawah district.