NREGA scam unearth tutorial

An illiterate paanwala in Gujarat stumbled over a scam. The motley bunch of beneficiaries include affluent NRIs, doctors, government officials, teachers and well-off farmers — all shown as unemployed village labourers holding NREGS job cards. So far, the money siphoned off comes to nearly Rs 1 crore.

You can see what happens in your locality too. Here is a short tutorial.

1. Go to the NREGA website
http://www.nrega.nic.in/netnrega/home.aspx

2. Click on your state

The state list on the left most panel.

3. Say you choose Rajasthan. Select English as language if you are not comfortable with Hindi. On the left most panel, choose the district you are interested in. Say it is Sikar.

4. Choose the block within the district. Block roughly corresponds to Tehsil. Choose the block containing your village. Now you need to know the local language. Say you choose Laxmangarh in Sikar.

5. After choosing block, you will need to choose village Panchayat. Say you choose Birodi Bari.

6. Now you have navigated to your village. You have all the information you need. The common scam is to include people in the list who do not actually work there. The contractors siphon money after recording that it has been paid to the particular labor. To see complete list, look into 'REGISTERS' on the right side of the page and click on 'Job card/Employment Register'. You will get list of villagers issued employment. You can even see the days when the workers were paid. Neat, isn't it?

7. Now you will see the list of job card holders.

8. You can click on the name of the worker and see when he has been employed.

It would have been more transparent if complete name of the villager was included. Many villagers especially women have same names. Without the caste and name of father/husband, it is a difficult task to identify an individual. We should strive to make sure that caste and father/husband's name are included too.