Aizawl: The opposition Mizo National Front on Tuesday held the Congress government responsible for excess NREGS job cards in Mizoram.
The number of job cards had exceeded that of the households in six of the eight districts, the MNF said in a statement, quoting the Mizoram Statistical Handbook 2010.
Even though the number of job cards – 1,98,186 – issued by the state rural development department for 2010-2011 is less than the total number of households – 2,14,704 – in the eight districts, as a whole, the number job cards is higher than that of households in six districts, resulting in 26,318 excess job cards.
”Given that a single job card earns Rs 129 per day for 100 days in a year, Rs 3395.02 lakh has been wasted while implementing the NREGS in Mizoram,” the MNF said in a statement.
”Since majority of village councils, who monitor NREGS in their respective jurisdictions, are ruled by Congress, the party is responsible for this gross misappropriation of public money through fake job cards,” the statement added.
While in Aizawl district, there are 37,367 job cards against the total 78,606 households; Saiha district has 12,947 job cards against 14,545 households, according to the records. In the remaining six districts, the number of job cards exceeds that of the households by 26,318.
Not only job cards, the number of family ration cards also exceed that of families in Mizoram, over which the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has also voiced serious concern.
The CAG, in its report for the year ended March 31, 2010, stated that the state’s food, civil supplies and consumer affairs issued excess ration cards ranging between 66,746 to 1,23,570 during 2007-2010.
As a result, Mizoram had an excess number of population ranging between 1,07,708 to 3,70,414 during the period.
According to the report, the department issued 315838 ration cards against the projected 249092 number of households in 2009-2010. The excess population, therefore, came to 370414 against the projected population of 1126067.
In 2007-2008, 311203 ration cards were issued against the projected 187633, making an excess population of 107708. Even though the projected number of households remained the same in 2008-2009, the ration cards came down to 305997.
However, the population according the FRCs jumped to 1552009 in 2008-2009.
The excess of ration cards came down to 66746 in 209-2010 from 118364 in 2008-2009 and that of population to 370414 from 529637.
Whereas Mizoram’s population, according to the FRCs issued in 2009-2010, was 1496418, the actual population as per the Census 2011 stands at 10,91,014. (UNI)