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<b>Letters:</b> Employ fair comparison

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Business Standard New Delhi
Last Updated : Jan 21 2013 | 4:14 AM IST

This refers to “Non-Cong states implementing UPA schemes better” (July 31). It presents a highly inflated MNREGA achievement by comparing expenditure against an arbitrary “available fund”. Under the MNREGA, fresh funds earmarked for a particular rural district are made available by the Union government as soon as 60 per cent of the funds allocated earlier are utilised by that district in a properly documented manner. Thus, if the earlier funds are not utilised, no fresh funds will be made available to that district, and the figure under “available fund” will go down, helping the district concerned to show a totally fictitious and misleading higher level of achievement.

Previous reports have compared unskilled person days provided against those to person days of work demanded. Though this is better, this is still not correct, because the implementing authority may delay payments and harass the beneficiaries, leading to a drop in the person days of work demanded. This will again show a totally fictitious and misleading higher level of achievement.

Alok Sarkar, Kolkata

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First Published: Aug 03 2010 | 12:49 AM IST

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