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By Anosh Malekar A social audit exposes the corruption in Rajasthan's employment guarantee works. This should not discredit the hard-won 100 days work guarantee for India's millions, but make citizens and civil society more vigilant to corrupt practices
Manju Kantilal says she is not a mason. The residents of her village too laugh at the suggestion, saying there is no way the young tribal woman could do a mason's job. But the Valota Gram Panchayat has 'paid' her Rs 3,800 besides 240 kg of wheat, for working as a mason on an employment guarantee work site last year. The muster rolls for the National Food For Work Programme (NFFWP) have Manju's thumb impression. "The thumb impression cannot be mine. I am literate enough to put my signature on the muster," protested the young tribal woman, her face covered in a sari as with most Rajasthani women in public places. The traditional veil could not hide Manju's agitation when the muster roll was held before her for verification, "Yeh sab galat hai. Mein wahan gayi hi nahin" (This is all wrong, I never went to the work site)! Manju Kantilal's case was one of several 'bogus' registrations or fudging of employment rolls detected during a mass social audit of employment guarantee works as part of the Rozgar Evum Suchna Ka Adhikar Abhiyan, an exercise in social monitoring, held in Dungarpur district of Rajasthan between April 15- 26, 2006. At the public hearing in Valota Panchayat in Dungarpur block, nobody knew how much money was pumped into the district under the NFFWP and where this money was spent during 2005-06, which was the focus of the social audit. The NFFWP began in Dungarpur district with the preparation of a five-year district perspective plan (DPP) detailing works that could be taken up at every block level and gram panchayat. Unfortunately, by the time the NFWP district plan was completed, the actual scheme had been converted into the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). The ambitious programme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre assures 100 days of manual work at minimum wage for millions of rural households in the country beginning this year. In Valota, Sarpanch Hurma Kawa Rath and Panchayat Secretary Bhure Lal were unable to explain the various anomalies in the muster rolls, bills and vouchers, to the dignitaries present at the public hearing. Among those present were Union Planning Commission member B N Yugandhar, Lok Sabha Secretariat joint secretary and financial advisor Amitabh Mukhopadhyay, Right to Information (RTI) activists Trilochan Shastri and Shailesh Gandhi, besides Dungarpur district collector Manju Rajpal and Rajasthan-based Majdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan's Aruna Roy, the driving force behind the entire exercise. As the official records were read out before the 1,000-odd villagers gathered under the blazing sun for the public hearing held inside a makeshift pandal, individuals and groups stood up to give their testimonies on the state of employment guarantee works in their panchayat. Arjun Phula, 36, said he never saw the Rs 5,100 paid to him for toiling at the Ombriwalla anicut (small dam built with cement or mud) site. His was not the only 'bogus' case in the family of four brothers. Shantilal Phula, who, according to elder brother Arjun, was a handicapped person, too had been paid Rs 5,150. Their younger siblings, Punja and Khema, who had migrated to Gujarat in search of work several years ago, were paid the same amount for working on the same site. "What is the use of a social audit now? Over 20,000 rupees were claimed in our names. We cannot lay claim to the money because we never toiled for it," grumbles Arjun. But on second thoughts, the brothers said the social audit would make them alert in future to such unfair practices in village development schemes. Harish Khemraj, a tailor from the village, said he was shocked to know that Rs 3,800 and 2.5 sacks full of wheat were claimed in his name by someone else. Moreover, Rs 6,300 was supposed to have been paid to his elder brother Mohan Khemraj who had left the village three decades ago and settled in Rajkot. The social audit team comprising 25 members of the Abhiyan spent a week at Valota, 20 kms from Dungarpur town, before the public hearing. They verified the muster rolls, bills and vouchers, technical and financial sanctions, and physically corroborated the works. The main finding of the team was that the names of many who had not gone to work or had migrated out of the state for earning a livelihood were found on the muster rolls. The absence of an assets register was another curious fact, considering that an estimated Rs 50 lakh had been spent on development works like roads, check dams and other water harvesting structures in the panchayat jurisdiction. ActionAid's Prasad Chacko, who was a member of the social audit team, said: "A lot of good work had been done under the employment guarantee scheme as a result of which water conservation had become a reality in this dry, hilly terrain." Chacko estimated that nearly 30% of the funds had been pocketed by sundry elected representatives and government functionaries at the lower level. Still, in a land where villagers practice rain-fed agriculture and invariably migrate for work post-monsoon, the availability of drinking water in summer and manual work for a minimum wage could go a long way in easing the burden on ordinary people's lives. The sarpanch and panchayat secretary explained that the difficult terrain had compelled them to use machinery instead of labourers at the work sites and later adjust the money on the muster rolls. "Such adjustments are made everywhere. There was no corrupt intention on our part," claimed Hurma Kawa Rath. There were few takers for this explanation at the public hearing as it was revealed that nearly Rs 20 lakh were paid to supplier firms run by the sarpanch's son and the panchayat secretary's brother. Hurma Kawa Rath maintained that no other firm was ready to supply tractors because of the lack of proper roads in the area. He had little option but to use the two tractors owned by his son's firm. Aruna Roy explained that the public hearing was not meant to target anyone. "The objective of this mass social audit was to establish the entitlements people have under the NREGA, and fight manipulation and negligence of the delivery machinery and vested interests." Rajasthan, a state exposed and hence conditioned to handling drought and relief works, besides being the birthplace of the Right to Information movement, had seized the opportunity to institutionalise transparency in the NREGA right from the start. It was hoped that this exercise, held two months into the implementation of the Act, would lead to the rapid spread of people's audit and related processes in other parts of the state and country. Roy said that the poor across the country had received the NREGA with much hope and it would be wrong to let corruption by a few pervert the intent of the Act. The use of the RTI in the current NREGS is meant to improve decision-making by allowing local communities the right to check wage records. It is hoped that the social audits and financial checks will plug the holes in future implementation of works. (Anosh Malekar is a Pune-based journalist) InfoChange News & Features, May 2006
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