Do we have enough lamp posts to hang the corrupt?

The tragedy of India is not that it does not have sufficient funds to eradicate poverty. There are schemes and schemes for the poor with allocations running to thousands of crores. Every successive Government has come out with more schemes for the poor keeping an eye on the vote bank. However, the delivery mechanism is so poor, implementation tardy and leakages very high that only 15 paise of every rupee spent by the Government actually reaches the intended recipient. What happens to the balance? Well I don't have to elaborate.

UPA Government launched the Rs 12,000 crores National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme couple of years back. Under this, households in 200 of the poorest districts in the country are promised, by law, to a maximum of 100 days employment at wages not below Rs 60 per day. The government has been bragging its success through advertisements titled "building a Republic of Work.

Like most of its predecessors, this scheme is a spectacular failure. Barely 3.2 per cent of the registered households could avail of 100 days of employment in one year — between February 2006 and March 2007. And the average employment provided under the scheme was just 18 days.

This are not my facts but this startling revelation comes after a six-month performance audit conducted in the field under the aegis of the Comptroller & Auditor General of the NREGS in 513 Gram Panchayats spread across 68 randomly selected districts from 26 states. The report highlights a slew of instances from all states of alleged corruption, inefficiency, diversion and misutilisation of funds and unreliable figures.

The audit has identified the key reasons behind the mismanagement: deficient financial management and tracking system, “inadequate” and “delayed” planning of the works, absence of authenticated books for records, workers being paid wages lower than the minimum wage rate. Lack of “adequate administrative and technical manpower” at the local level is also marked as one of the main deficiencies affecting the implementation of the programme.

The most horrifying part is that Government, instead of improving the delivery mechanism and ensuring 100% compliance, has already added an additional 130 districts last year and has ambitious plans in the election year to extend this Scheme across the country.

The allocation for this scheme comes from our hard earned money - what we pay as taxes. Why should we subsidise corruption?

And amongst all these, the poor languish, shivering in the cold wave that is blowing across North India and not knowing where the next meal is coming from.

We need to hang the people on lamp posts who deny the money that is meant for the poorest of poor. But then as someone said, we don't have enough lamp posts in the country to implement this plan of mass hanging.