Andhra Pradesh gets rare CAG pat

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Hyderabad: The Comptroller and Auditor General while praising the some aspects of the state government’s implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, has nevertheless found some lapses. 
 
The CAG report, tabled in the Assembly on Friday, says, ‘There were several positives and good practices being followed in the state, which are worthy of emulation by the other states.’ The CAG has conducted a performance audit of the implementation of MGNREGS in six districts (Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, Anantapur, Kurnool, Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram), 18 mandals, 180 gram panchayats as well as 1,800 works and 1,789 beneficiaries. 
 
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was enacted in September 2005, and implemented in a phased manner between February 2006 and April 2008 in all rural districts of the country.
 
The Act aims at enhanced livelihood security of rural households by guaranteeing 100 days of paid employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
 
The CAG report said that the structural mechanisms and capacity building measures adopted by the state government for implementation of MGNREGA were largely adequate. Adequacy of the shelf of works in the test checked districts, mandals and gram panchayats was not a major hindrance to implementation of the scheme and provision of employment.
 
But the audit revealed several deficiencies in financial management, including accumulation of funds, and non adjustment of outstanding advances. The CAG said one of the major issues with the implementation of MGNREGS is the large number of works-in-progress in a gram panchayat but, the available administrative infrastructure; this cannot be managed and supervised effectively. High material component works were executed by Line departments, which were in violation of the Act.
 
The CAG noted the importance of the state government’s transaction based MGNREGS Management Information System, through which payments are generated. It had significant control deficiencies, which need to be addressed urgently.
 
The surveys of beneficiaries confirmed an improvement in the lives of workers (income, change in expenditure pattern, bargaining power), accompanied by a reduction in migration to urban areas.
 
While there were several lacunae in the implementation of MGNREGS relating to financial management, record maintenance, muster roll entries, delays in payment of wages, creation of durable assets, non completion of works, there were several positive and good practices being followed in the state.
 
The system for capture of technical inputs for preparation of detailed inputs and generation of detailed estimates using the AP MGNREGS software is adequate, and is worthy of emulation in other states.
 
The implementation of a centralised Electronic Fund Management System linked to a transaction based MIS by the state eliminates the problem of parking/blockade of unutilised funds at the district and lower levels, the report noted.