Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said the government has written letters to heads of IITs and IIMs and vice chancellors of universities seeking their cooperation and involvement in the scheme.
"We have started receiving responses from some of these institutions that they are keen to partner us," Singh told the Rajya Sabha during the Question Hour.
He said the government has asked officials of these reputed institutes to visit villages for conducting technical and impact assessment studies besides lending their help in implementing the programme.
To a separate question, he said 237 million households have got jobs under the rural employment guarantee scheme so far this year as against 210 million families last year.
The minister admitted that some instances of irregularities in implementation of the ambitious scheme have come to the notice of the government and his ministry was looking into such complaints.
"I admit there are teething troubles. In fact, it was my ministry which had asked the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to look into implementation of the scheme," he said.
He said the implementation of the scheme was being done by states and the Centre has only a monitoring role. "There could be irregularities and we are looking into it," he added.
