[Reader-list] Reg: Read this article in Hindu

[Rakesh Iyer]

http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/16/stories/2009121655370900.htm

*Violence and threats bring a government to its knees * Vidya
Subrahmaniam *Rajasthan had emerged as a model for transparency and
accountability in
NREGS implementation. Tragically, entrenched interests have been allowed to
hijack the process. *

Through the second half of October and for most of November this year,
Rajasthan was engulfed in an unusual form of protest, spearheaded in the
main by gram panchayat officials. Joined in some places by elected MLAs and
MPs, and backed covertly by a section of District Collectors, the panchayat
staff held meetings, sat in dharna, issued threats, and when these did not
suffice, blocked highways, to get a single point across. They would not
tolerate civil society participati on in social audit of works done under
the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

The protestors filed cases in two courts and obtained stay orders against
the inclusion of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social activists
in future social audit exercises. It would have been easy enough for the
Ashok Gehlot Government to convince the courts that civil society
participation brought credibility to the audit exercise. Not only did the
government not do that, it went a step further and called off the audits it
had announced for one panchayat each in 32 of the State’s 33 districts.

It was clear to those who incredulously watched the action-reaction sequence
that the Government had succumbed to pressure from a small yet powerful
group of people who had made it plain that they would not have their
wrongdoings investigated. It was a classic case of an entrenched power bloc
flexing its muscles — and getting reward points for it.
 Ironic turn of destiny

For Rajasthan, seen up until then as a model for transparency and
accountability in NREGS implementation, the cancellation was an ironic turn
of destiny. Only two months earlier, the Gehlot government had gone into
overdrive, gathering NGOs and social activists for an unprecedented joint
social audit conducted under blazing arc lights in the panchayats of
Bhilwara. State Ministers conveyed their congratulations to the audit teams
from decorated podiums, as did C.P. Joshi, Union Minister for Rural
Development and Member of Parliament from Bhilwara, who was the guest of
honour at an October 11 rally that marked the conclusion of the audit.

Enthusiasm ran high as thousands of NGO volunteers, who had banded together
under the Aruna Roy-led Rozgar Evum Suchna Adhikar Abhiyan (right to
employment and information campaign), or the RESAA, set out into rural
Bhilwara for the audit. Of the district’s 381 panchayats, 11 were chosen for
focussed attention while the rest were covered over 10 days by teams of
padayatris tasked with checking compliance with the National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 — both by means of physical inspection of
works, job cards, muster rolls and so on, and through feedback from
villagers.

As the 11 audit teams got to work, they realised that they were on to
something big. Damning evidence was emerging of diversion of NREGS funds by
a defrauding mechanism that went all the way up from the sarpanch at the
bottom to block and district-level staff. The padayatris reported missing
job cards, fudged or absent muster rolls and improper maintenance of other
NREGS documents. (Later reports from other districts would corroborate the
corruption, and it would come to light that two District Collectors had been
recommended for suspension for irregular use of NREGA funds.)
 By-word for hope

The corruption and the irregularities unearthed in Bhilwara were alarming,
but the silver lining was that the social audit had zeroed in on them, as
was in fact envisaged by the job guarantee Act. Indeed, the ecstatic public
response to the audit, and the official stamp on it, made Bhilwara a by-word
for hope and inspiration — as much for civil society advocates of the
largest guaranteed job employment scheme in the world as for the many
millions of poor people drawing sustenance from it, and already feeling its
impact, despite the corruption involved in the scheme and its patchy and
half-hearted implementation.

Perhaps it was too good to be true. The Bhilwara exercise was itself a
product of struggle. The sarpanchs had tried hard to block the audit, and
failing in that, they had openly raised their voices at the *jan
sunwais*(public hearings) where the preliminary audit results were
read out. In some
places audit teams reporting irregularities were heckled and intimidated.
But the audit sailed through because the Rajasthan government put its weight
behind the project.

Post-Bhilwara, Ms. Roy and others in the RESAA had been flooded with
requests for similar audits to be done in their districts. One such request
came from Congress MP from Alwar Jitendra Singh. He was not to know then
that this small act would unleash a storm that would take him in its sweep.

The Bhilwara social audit ended on October 11, and with that went out the
message that the audit juggernaut was moving to Alwar. Within a week,
sarpanchs of panchayats in Alwar had organised themselves into a sarpanch
maha sangh. On October 25, Independent MP from Dausa Kirorilal Meena
addressed a meeting of State panchayati raj staff, where he announced a
formal boycott of civil society groups. “We will not let Aruna Roy and her
team enter Alwar,” he thundered, and promised to get the Chief Minister to
intervene and stop the audit.

Ms. Roy and other RESAA activists also met Mr. Gehlot, following which both
sides decided to drop the idea of saturation social audit in favour of a
model social audit to be conducted in one chosen panchayat from each
district in two batches through late- November and December. Each audit team
was to consist of 10 Block Resource Persons (BRPs), 10 gram panchayat
members chosen from neighbouring panchayats and two civil society
representatives. Civil society participation was kept to the minimum to
satisfy the protestors. And, since the purpose of the audit was to examine
how NREGS funds were being utilised, the choice fell on the panchayat
showing the maximum material expenditure.

The highest-spending panchayat in Alwar was Madhogarh. The audit here was to
start with a two-day November 21-22 training programme for gram panchayat
staff. But the sarpanchs had already made up their minds to block the audit.
On November 18, the gram sevak of Madhopur locked up the panchayat office,
reported sick, and disappeared with the NREGS records. The Block Development
Officer (BDO) broke open the locks in the presence of the District
Collector, and finding the records missing, filed an FIR against the gram
sevak, the sarpanch and the rozgar sahayak (NREGS secretary). But with
pressure mounting on the BDO, he himself would flee to Gwalior to escape
being present when the audit team arrived.

Around this time came news that the NREGS Commissioner for Rajasthan,
Rajendra Bhanawat, had twice recommended the suspension of the District
Collectors of Chittorgarh and Dholpur for irregular employment of NREGS
funds. This inflamed sections of the IAS fraternity, adding more muscle to
the anti-social audit campaign. Mr. Bhanawat has since been transferred out.

By November 24, the mood had turned ugly in Madhopur. Congress MLA Tikaram
squatted in dharna while a crowd of 300 people led by sarpanchs and other
panchayat staff blocked the Alwar-Delhi State highway, relenting only after
the Additional District Magistrate announced that no civil society
representative will join the audit. Four Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs were
among those named by the police in an FIR filed against those who indulged
in obstruction.

Here was an incredible case of people’s representatives joining hands with
village-level government officials to block an audit of funds earmarked for
India’s — and the world’s — biggest welfare programme. The NREGS was the
United Progressive Alliance’s flagship project. Mr. Gehlot was a Congress
Chief Minister. Yet, as it happens with all such cases, the FIR was
withdrawn and the case against the obstructors closed.

With Alwar showing the way, the agitation spread to Jailsamer, Barmer,
Sirohi, Chittor, Rajsamand and other districts. In Barmer, the social audit
team was intercepted by a 400-strong armed mob that included panchayat
officials and politicians. In Rajsamand, Lal Singh, a civil society
representative on the audit team, was surrounded by a violent mob that
bundled him into a vehicle with the threat that he would be killed if he
returned.
 Powerful axis

A powerful axis of panchayat staff-legislators-district officials had
brought the government to it knees. It was evident that those who were meant
to be in the vanguard of fighting corruption were fighting to protect
corruption. It was evident too that the report of the Bhilwara audit (a copy
of which is available with *The Hindu*) had unearthed something that
threatened to shake the system.

Consider these by way of example. In gram panchayat Para, auditors examining
bills for construction material supplied by “Devnarain Krishi Firm,” found
no supplier by that name. A phone call to the number listed in the bill was
answered by the sarpanch’s son. This single “firm” had billed the panchayat
for material supplies worth Rs. 25 lakh. In the same panchayat, suppliers
‘Nakowda Agency’ disputed the statement that they had supplied material.

In gram panchayat Sangwa, auditors found hand-written, *kaccha* bills for
material supplies amounting to over Rs. 40 lakh from a fake firm called
“Dinesh Kumar Trivedi.” Trivedi and Rajkumar Talior, another supplier, were
also shown to have sold kerosene.

However, a visit to the location showed a ramshackle shop with a single
tractor and no stock of materials claimed to have been supplied. In
panchayat Devaria, the auditors found no supplier by the name “Tulsiram putr
Ramaji Teli.” In the same panchayat, suppliers “Gopi Putr Gokul Teli” gave
it in writing that the bills generated in their names were fake.