Newindpress, 13th April, 2008
BHUBANESWAR: THE Centre has decided to discontinue with the practice of directly releasing funds to districts under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) from the current financial year following largescale complaints from states.The Rural Development Ministry has intimated the State to open a separate account under NREGS so that the Central assistance will directly go to that account.The distribution of funds to districts will now be the job of the State Government. Under the national flagship wage employment programme launched in 2006- 07, the Ministry of Rural Development was sanctioning projects and releasing funds directly to the NREGS districts. The districts were preparing the project proposals and submitting the State Government approved plans to the Centre for financial assistance.In 2007-08, several districts experienced paucity of funds due to inordinate delay in allocation of the second dose of assistance from the Centre. As the district administrations of Mayurbhanj, Kalahandi and some others failed to pay the wages of the workers, the State Government had to arrange contigency fund from its own resources.The delay in release of Central assistance was mostly due to delay in sanctioning of district projects. As the Rural Development Ministry sought repeated clarifications on flimsy grounds, the sanction of funds got delayed, a senior officer said.After writing several times to the Ministry, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik took up the issue directly with Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh during his visit to Delhi. After receiving similar complaints from other States, the Ministry was forced to revise its policy, the sources said. The Government has opened a separate account for the scheme.
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