What is stopping drought-hit Karnataka from getting additional funds from the Centre under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA)? Surprisingly, it is the gram panchayats that have scuttled the State's chances of getting more funds. Consider this:
* 5,273 gram panchayats (out of 5,800) have either parked huge funds or have failed to update their audited accounts and utilisation certificates for the work already done.
* Over the last three months, 123 taluks declared as drought-hit (in the first phase) have spent only about Rs 302 crore out of the total Rs 770 crore that they have been awarded.
* The State is yet to update the expenditure for the pending bills of the last two years (2010-11 and 2011-12), which amounts to a staggering Rs 316 crore.
The State government has finally decided to crack the whip on 'unruly' gram panchayats. It has prepared a revised memorandum seeking Rs 700 crore from the Centre.
State officials claim that parking funds by GPs is depriving other needy GPs. “The NREGA Rule states that States have to spend at least 60 per cent of the total allocation to be eligible for additional funds. But Karnataka has managed to spend only 44 per cent of the funds due to gram panchayats parking funds. Lack of manpower and expertise is an issue. But the bigger challenges like raising fake bills, unwillingness of panchayats to get third party inspection of works, piling up and rushing bulky bills to escape scrutiny remain to be tackled,” rued a senior official in the RDPR (NREGA) department.
Under the rural employment scheme, the Centre has guaranteed 150 days of employment across 142 drought-hit taluks (instead of 125 days), and the State is hoping to get supplementary funds. Justifying its claim for additional funds, the chief minister has asserted that the State will have no money to carry out NREGA as 80 per cent of the State (142 taluks) are staring at a severe drought. “On April 1, we had Rs 1,049 crore under NREGA. But we have already spent Rs 430 crore and another Rs 316 crore will go towards settling the pending bills for the last two years,” states the memorandum.