Sarpanches clash with govt over NREGP

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) may be at loggerheads with the Comptroller and Auditor General over its sharp criticism of the functioning of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP).

But in eastern Uttar Pradesh's Sonbhadra district, a drama is being played out that highlights just why the programme has largely been a failure.

Since January 17, all 50 sarpanches "" elected heads of local village councils or panchayats "" here have been protesting outside the office of the block development officer (BDO) against implementing the NREGP.

Already one of them "" of Maldeva panchayat in the Dudhi administrative block which covers the 50 villages "" has been ousted in a no-confidence motion by local opposition in the village.

Islahuddin, the sarpanch of Bhaikhad village, is readying for a similar move, again from local leaders whom he had defeated in elections two years ago.

Meanwhile, the BDO has lodged a police case against Sonamati Devi, the illiterate sarpanch of Rajkhad panchayat, for making payments under the NREGP in excess of work done.

Implementing the NREGP "" the UPA government's showpiece "people's" programme "" has created a huge rumpus here mainly because the sarpanches say they have to pay block development offices "margin money" upfront before they can access funds to pay workers for work done under the NREGP.

"We have to pay wages to 500 workers for which we get about Rs 2 lakh in six months. But to get this, we have to pay 30 per cent margin money to the block officials," said Jagdish Prasad Yadav of Jorukhad village.

He claimed this funding problem will inevitably cause them to lose elections, which are due two-and-a-half years from now "" the recent no-confidence motions are one indication of this.

The 50 sarpanches of the block agree with him. As a result, NREGP work has been suspended since January 19. On February 1, however, block officials found a way out by threatening to dissolve all panchayats and replace them with three-member committees to implement the scheme.

"It is a victory for officialdom and defeat for the panchayats "" but it will not ensure victory for the NREGP," said Ambika Prasad, husband of the sarpanch who has a police case filed against her.

The additional problem with Dudhi's "funding" pattern is that while the sarpanches pay the margin money, a block official ""the junior engineer to be precise "" is responsible for the technical sanction, the approval of the projects and, most important, measuring the work. "But when accountability is to be fixed, the sarpanch is crucified," said Jagdish Prasad, the sarpanch of Jorukhad.

Under the present system, sarpanches are expected to pay job-card holders on a daily or weekly basis but the amount to be paid is decided by a junior engineer who measures the work months later.

So the difference in wages can then be used against the sarpanch. Sonamati, behind whom all the sarpanches have rallied, was framed on precisely these grounds. The sarpanches say if this is the fate of one sarpanch after a measurement exercise then all of them are liable to go to jail as well.

Compounding this problem is the fact that the panchayats do not get enough money to pay all job-card holders in each village for 100 days of work mandated under the scheme.

To pay even 500 job-card holders at the mandated minimum wage rate of Rs 100 a day requires Rs 50 lakh. Last year, most villages of Dudhi received, on average, Rs 10 lakh each.

Dudhi block development officer Sanjay Kumar Pandey admits that he could pay only Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh to each village since July 2007. He also admits that there is a problem of payments having to be made before work can be measured.

But he alleges that Sonamati's case was more of false job cards and fudged records. "Measurements were being falsely highlighted by corrupt sarpanches," he says.

The sarpanches have now resolved to get the work done only if the block development office administers the schemes and also makes the payments to recipients.

"Why should the BDO get a fancy salary and a 30 per cent cut from NREGP while we get jail?" said one of them. Pandey denied this saying that the villages had no proof of such illegal payments and challenges them to draw up a social audit.

District magistrate Ajay Shukla said the sarpanches are exaggerating. The police case against sarpanches would reveal wrongdoings at every level. The scheme would be implemented in any case, he adds.