MP chairs review meeting

The funds allocated for the district under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) is a mere Rs 89 crore for 2012-13, but the officials have failed to spend even 20 per cent of the allocation, despite the financial year coming to an end.

For the year 2011-12, the allocation had been Rs 80 crore, but the district received just Rs 45.07 crore under MNREGA, owing to dismal performance by the authorities concerned. The reduction in funds was based on the rule that the allocation for the second half of the financial year should match the spending in the first half.

In the previous year, finally, even though 100 per cent spending of funds available was projected, the MLAs had alleged that labourers had not received payment. The 70 per cent progress shown by the officials over just two months, last year, has been a great ‘achievement’. The fact that the officials were gearing up to repeat the ‘miracle’ this year too, came to the fore at the progress review meeting of centre-funded schemes, chaired by MP R Dhruvanarayan here on Tuesday.

Except for the forest department, all other departments were found lagging behind in spending the allocation for development works.  

The MP pointed out that some labourers had got payment for work even though they had died, which showed the kind of discrepancies in implementation of works. He instructed the officials to be thorough in their duties, rather than completing their responsibilities for formality.

ZP CEO M R Somasekharappa, DC N Jayaram, ZP president G Nagashree, MLA C Puttaranga Shetty and ZP vice-president P Mahadevappa were present at the meeting.