Long tenure of staff leads to graft in NREGS

Srikakulam: Long tenure of mandal level officials and staff is causing irregularities in Kotabommali, Santhabommali mandals in implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

District Water Resources Management agency (DWMA) is the nodal agency for implementation of the MGNREGS works at district level. Project director (PD) of the DWMA is also supervising authority of the MGNREGS.

In Kotabommali mandal,mandal level officials and staff are working for more than eight years, which is blamed for alleged anomalies in implementation of the NREGS. Moreover, employs serving at same place for years is also against rules. There are allegations that with the connivance of district level officials concerned, the mandal level team NREGS is collecting bribes from the wage seekers in the name of expenditure to satisfy inspecting officials and social audit teams. Inspection authorities, social audit teams and district level officers are usually having lunch and receiving other amounts from the mandal level team of Kotabommali whenever the above officials are visiting the surrounding mandals.

In Santhabommali mandal, muster sheets and muster register which contain details of wage seekers and working days went missing previously with the role of mandal level officials and staff.

The aim of the officials and staff in making muster sheets disappear is concealing the irregularities in payment of wages to workers and also fictitious beneficiaries.

The issue reached to state level officials who ordered an inquiry into and finally the muster sheets were uploaded from DWMA district office in Srikakulam by preparing them again and also creating a muster register.

The prime objective of the Central government is being defeated due to these irregularities at mandal level with the alleged connivance of the district officials. Both Kotabommali and Santhabommali mandals are under purview of TekkaliAssembly constituency represented by agriculture minister KAtchannaidu. When contacted, DWMA project director G V Chitti Raju said they were going to prevent such irregularities after making an inquiry.