By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Admitting that cases of irregularities in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has come down, Commissioner and Secretary of Community and Rural Development Department KN Kumar said more trainings need to be conducted in the village and block levels to eradicate corruption in the implementation of this scheme.
“Compared to the recent years, such irregularities have come down and this is a good sign which indicates that frauds and defaulters are realizing the consequences of involving in such crimes”, Kumar told this scribe here on Monday.
While crediting the State Rural Employment Society (SRES) for this achievement, Kumar mentioned that the SRES has been conducting various training programmes for the chairman and secretaries of the Village Employment Council (VECs) and Area Employment Council (AECs) all over the state.
At present, they have managed to cover Jaintia Hills, Garo Hills, East Khasi Hills whereas for Ri Bhoi and West Khasi Hills, training programmes are scheduled to be held by May based on their 2012-13 plan.
The C & RD Commissioner further informed that with the setting up of the SRES in August last year which acts as a nodal agency to check anomalies in the implementation of this scheme, newspaper reports and complaints were received and action was taken accordingly.
“FIR has been lodged, actions were taken, siphoned money has been recovered on many cases and many other things”, Kumar said. With the coming of the banks in the arena, the level of corruption will go down as money will be deposited in the accounts rather than handing over of huge amount of cash to the respective VECs and AECs’ members.