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Question

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program, MGNREGA was earlier known as National Rural Employment Scheme, NREGA. It is an Indian Social Welfare Program that aimed at fulfilling the 'Right to Work' provisions made in the Constitution. MGNREGA was launched in 2006 under Rural Employment Sector by the Ministry of Rural Development. Main objective of the program is to give legal guarantee of wage employment to the adult members of rural households who are willing to do unskilled manual labour work subject to a maximum of 100 days per year for every household. Every rural household has the right to register under the scheme, job card is issued to the registered, Job Card holder can seek employment; State Government shall pay 25% of minimum wage for the first 30 days as compensatory daily unemployment allowance to the families and of wage for remaining period of the year. MGNREGA work was undertaken by various Gram Panchayats. You have been appointed as an Administrator Incharge of the District. You have been given the responsibility of monitoring MGNREGA work undertaken by various Gram Panchayats. You are also given the authority to give technical sanctions to all MGNREGA works. In one of the Panchayats in your jurisdiction, you notice that your predecessor has mismanaged the Program in terms of :
(i) Money not disbursed to actual job-seekers.
(ii) Muster Rolls of the Labourers not properly maintained.
(iii) Mismatch between the work done and payments made.
(iv) Payments made to fictitious persons.
(v) Job Cards were given without looking into the need of person.
(vi) Mismanagement of funds and to the extent of siphoning of funds.
(vii) Approved works that never existed.

What actions would you initiate to solve the various issues listed above?

This question was previously asked in
UPSC CSE 2025 (Prelims) CSAT Official Paper (25-May-2025)

I would initiate a multi-pronged action plan. First, I will order an immediate halt on payments for all questionable works and form a special team to conduct a thorough audit of the last few years' records. Based on the findings, I will lodge FIRs against officials and beneficiaries involved in creating fictitious entries and siphoning funds. Recovery proceedings will be initiated. A comprehensive drive will be launched to verify all job cards and physically inspect work sites. To prevent recurrence, I will enforce the use of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and geo-tagging of assets.

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Sarvesh Jha

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