The Union government has decided to conduct a quality auditing of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) in at least two districts in each State over the next eight months. A circular from the Ministry of Rural Development says the objective is to study whether the work carried out were properly planned, designed and executed and whether the assets created were of good quality, economical, productive and durable and the extent to which it has strengthened the livelihood resource base of the rural poor.
The exercise expects an analysis of the action plan approved by the zilla parishad and the work undertaken thereof ever since the inception of the entitlement of 100 days of guaranteed work from 2006-07 to the current financial year.
Evaluation
The department has chosen on a random basis a total of 56 districts, examining two from the bigger States and one from the smaller ones. The Ministry has selected one good and one bad district from each State for evaluation.
Altogether eight villages will be reviewed for quality in each district as per the sampling procedure. Four blocks will be chosen in each district and from each block, two gram panchayats and in each gram panchayat, only one village will be taken up for appraisal.
The Ministry has decided to get the job done through local government engineering institutes, government engineering colleges with graduate courses in agricultural engineering or civil engineering and those who have the manpower and technical competence to carry out the task.
