MARGAO, APRIL 8
The National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme has virtually hit the cross roads in South Goa with funds allocated to the panchayat bodies remaining unutilized and the Centre rejecting the Rural Development Agency’s (RDA) request for additional funds for the district.
An agitated RDA Minister Churchill Alemao on Thursday threatened to terminate the services of gram sevaks if their performance is found unsatisfactory. That’s not all. The minister has resolved to give the Zilla members the powers to execute the NREG scheme following complaints that some sarpanchas are deliberately going slow in the implementation.
To tide over the situation, the RDA Ministry headed by Alemao has now asked all the panchayats which have unutilized funds at their disposal to return back the money for utilization in other panchayat bodies.
The RDA stakeholders are not pinning their hopes that the warning issued by the minister to the gram sevaks to convince panchayats to utilize the funds would pay dividends. Says Farrel Furtado, who looks after the execution of the NREG scheme in South Goa: “We don’t have even money to pay salaries. Requests to obtain additional funds have not met with success as the Centre wants utilization of the sanctioned funds.”
According to the the RDA minister, the State had asked for Rs 25 crore funds for South Goa and Rs 10 crore for North under the NREG scheme. “The Centre has sanctioned only Rs 3 crore for South Goa, because they have not taken up any work. The staff appointed to implement the scheme have not prepared the job cards. Some of the panchayat bodies have not implemented the work despite taking money under the scheme”, Alemao said.
That Alemao now meant business was evident by the fact that he conveyed a message loud and clear to the 540 employees recruited to implement the NREG scheme to either get going or face termination. “I have given them just one more month to either perform or face termination. New staff will be roped in to take the scheme to the countryside”, he added.
Without naming anyone, the RDA minister said that many sarpanchas have not taken the scheme seriously and announced his decision to empower the Zilla members to execute the scheme in areas where the sarpanchas have been found wanting.
RDA Project Director, Melvyn Vaz admitted that the progress of the NREG scheme in South Goa has been below par. “When the scheme was reviewed in November last, the situation was not that rosy. It has not improved since then”, he said, adding that unless the sanctioned funds are fully utilized, there is no question of the district receiving additional funds for the implementation of the employment guarantee scheme.
In fact, Vaz said the RDA office has written letters to the erring panchayats to return back the funds so that the same is utilized in other panchayat areas.
Meanwhile, Alemao has constituted a committee headed by Furtado, Rajini Raikar and Filomeno Barretto to monitor the progress and performance of the gram sevaks for the next one month before a decision is taken on their termination.
“This is the final ultimatum to all the gram sevaks to perform or face termination. I will go as per the report of the monitoring committee”, he warned the gram sevaks at a review meeting fo the NREG scheme at the Ravindra Bhavan here on Thursday evening.
