NREGA fund shrinking nothing but myth as Union budget made 12% higher allocation
Banshi R Saha
AGARTALA, March 16 (TIWN): With the advent of the new coalition government in centre, inevitable alterations have hit the nation as regards the policy formulation and restructuring the flagship public welfare schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the alikes to make the same schemes and Acts more opportune and effective and relating to the same, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is rumored to shrink the fund of NREGA to revamp the project. But here in Tripura the state government is leaving no stone unturned to arouse a theme of anti centre as why the fund outlay is being shortened though it did not find it necessary to introspect that how much (billions in INR) money has been misused , misappropriated and embezzled by the state political and administrative functionaries as not a scam case has not been cornered, yet. Furthermore, apart from the aforesaid factual matter, the state government has not been able to utilize the entire allotment got NREGA in the fiscal 2013-14, although it bagged the top notch slot in nation for NREGA implementation. When as huge as Rs. 24.68 crore remains as balance, the need for more fund is not beyond subjugate trajectory.
Source-Planning Department, GoT
However, it is to be mentioned that this small far flung state Tripura has been holding its accolade by implementing the NREGA projects in the best possible way in the entire country.
And it is evident from the above data that almost all the districts of the state have registered more than 95 % expenditure of the allotted fund, which is a record breaking performance within itself.
Nevertheless, still there remained an unused corpus of nearly Rs.25 crore.
And this amount could not be utilized to provide meaningful works or employment to the rural people due to undisclosed reasons.
Now, if one analyses the presented facts and figures, it would be observed that alogwith grabbing the prize for NREGA, the Government of Tripura (GoT) is scaling new heights in making opening/outstanding balance (OB).
And the amount is or the trend is as staggering as a 100% rise. In the 2012-13 Financial Year (FY) there was an opening balance of Rs. Eleven crore forty two lakh(approximately).
And in the subsequent year, it has become Rs. Twenty four crore sixtry eight lakh (approx), to make a Year on Year (YoY) contrast.
Meanwhile, it can, logically, not be believed that Tripura does not possess adequate amount of job seeking people under NREGA.
Then why the optimum use of fund was not made?
To add to that, the administrative spectrum and policy makers are not inadequate in number as just years ago state government increased the number of districts, subdivisions and blocks in the name of decentralization of power than where lies the implementation bottlenecks?
But instead of developing own state of affairs to enhance the utilization, the left lead people in power seem to remain busy in criticizing the union government for its policies and further increasing the NREGA allotment so that more Bimal like shoulders can be used to shoot the birds of funds and storing the same in the galore of Melarmath.
Meanwhile, to prove a myth as null and void the UPA-launched MGNREGA got higher budgetary allocations of Rs 34,699 crore with nearly 12 per cent hike over the current fiscal, in the union
budget of 2015.
Sanjay Majumder
Anirban Mitra