MGNREGA in Burdwan crossed Rs 306 crores expenditure. highest expenditure by any District in the Country till Sep 2012

Preliminary reports from PIAs indicates that cumulative expenditure under MGNREGA in Burdwan district has crossed Rs 306 crores mark from April to 30th September 2012. District released Rs 331 crores to PIAs out of which MIS reports of Rs 292 cores are reflected online. Balance fund is also spent and MIS offline entry will be reflected shortly.

• Man days creation is almost 180 lakhs out of which 169 lakhs is reflected online. This is the highest expenditure and man days creation in any district of India in first six months of the financial year since inception of the programme in 2006-7.
• Burdwan stood 9th in the country in terms of mandays creation in 2011-12 financial year. This year we have further improved the position and now ranked at 6th in the country in terms of highest man days creation and first in Eastern India.
• Burdwan achieved Rs 400 crores expenditure in 2010-11 and Rs 359 crores in 2011-12. Man days created in these years was 210 lakhs and 190 lakhs respectively.
• In earlier years, highest expenditure in a year never crossed Rs 300 crores and man days never 150 lakhs.
• We are happy to note that 2.29 lakhs families who completed more than 15 days work under MGNREGA and belong to APL families have been selected for Health Insurance under RSBY making them entitle to get free treatment of Rs 30000 per year for a family of five. This is the most crucial achievement of MGNREGA in Burdwan.

There are reports from some of the GPs that payment of material purchases and wages in few cases could not be made as further fund release is awaited from Govt. of India. Rs 25 crores have been released recently. GOI has been requested to release further funds revising Labour Budget in view of unprecendent performance by District.

 

Now, district authority has decided to conduct special audit cum accounts verification at each GP level in next two months to ensure that all registers and accounts are maintained properly and procedures for purchases have been followed as per West Bengal Panchayat Accounts Rules 2003 as directed by State Govt. This special internal audit will also be useful in streamlining the accounting systems and identifying shortcomings of implementation/ procedures that can be rectified in time before December 2012.

 

It is also decided that no funds shall be released to GPs if it is found that

• works were executed without prior sanction of BDO & PO
• Purchase procedures/ tender formalities for purchase of materials not followed,
• MBs of the work measurement not maintained or authenticated by Nirman Sahayak/ Job Assistant/ Technical Assistant,
• Physical verification of the work site not conducted by Block authority and
• Photographs of the work are not submitted to BDO.

We hope that these measures will ensure transparency in the work execution. Intensive field visits by Team Burdwan, monitoring meetings with PIAs and staff involved and effective manpower motivation & work utilisation could achieve very good results in Burdwan. Keep it up TEAM BURDWAN.