This may sound a harsh comment, but the reality is that there is now little scope left for social audit of the massive spending on both wages of the jobless poor villagers as well as huge purchases of material. These glaring loopholes in the system now operating in Rajasthan have been highlighted by the village workers in Tonk district, who instead of being the beneficiaries of the scheme, were robbed of their due and “guaranteed” wages of Rs 100 per day, and were actually paid the incredible lowest amount of Re. 1 per day. When their silent protest in Tonk did not reach the deaf ears of the State government, they chose Mahatma Gandhi's birthday to return these ridiculous wages to 99 workers (Rs 1,037) to State minister Bharat Singh in Jaipur. Yet, there was no instant justice!

The story goes like this: initially, the NREG Act passed by Parliament in 2005, provided that the funds provided by the Central government at the village level would be open to accountability and transparency. The guidelines issued later also specifically provided that the NGOs would be associated with the work of social audit. But, quite surprisingly, the Act was amended this year in a surreptitious manner to bar NGOs from being associated with social audit of the expenses.

This amendment treated the NGOs as “outsiders”, and laid down that the audit committees at the local levels would be nominated by the village sarpanches and gram sabhas. It virtually meant that this so-called audit would now be conducted by those who spend public money. What a mockery of the basic concept and purpose of audit! The NGOs may find a place in the sarpanch-appointed committees, but would not be allowed to participate in its work or demand any information about the financial bunglings at the sarpanch level.

This strange amendment to the Act has come after the NGOs in Rajasthan and elsewhere had successfully conducted social audit in Bhilwara and other districts. These exercises had exposed frauds involving Rs 76 crore. The result was, that the sarpanches and local officials of the State government ganged up and refused to provide any records for audit. The sarpanches organised protests to keep the “outsiders” away from any audit. They demanded more powers to the sarpanches and gram sabhas in the implementation of the NREG scheme. The State government readily conceded these demands.

Now, social audits have stopped completely, and what would henceforth be done by the “players” would be a farce. Not unexpectedly, this move to keep social activists out of the game (as outsiders) has got full support from the BJP in the State. There is a unity of purpose among the political class - to facilitate corruption in the scheme and keep at bay the watchdogs. (Panchayat elections are held on party basis).

Rajasthan could easily adopt the mechanism working in another Congress-ruled state, Andhra Pradesh. There, NGOs are involved in social audit, and the results have been marvellous. Not only frauds have been detected; the amount so looted (Rs 82 crore) has been recovered from the culprits. Will the Congress at the Centre take cognizance of the distortions made in Rajasthan, and intervene to save the NREG scheme from total collapse.

What is surprising is that Rajasthan Minister has not yet disclosed any action taken against those responsible for paying wages at the rate of Re. 1 per day in Tonk. Nor has the difference been paid yet to the poor villagers. (IPA)