Tripura High Court asks state to go for MGNREGS audit

AGARTALA: Tripura high court on Thursday asked the state government to engage competent chartered accountants to audit the accounts under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
The directive came after a long drawn out hearing of two PILs demanding CBI inquiry into the implementation of MGNREGS by senior advocate Arun Chandra Bhowmik and renowned physician Ashok Sinha.The petitioners had alleged massive irregularities in the implementation of MGNREGS across the state.
The division bench comprising chief justice T Vaiphei and justice Subhashis Talapatra directed the state government to engage independent chartered accountants in all 58 blocks in the next two months. The audit has to be conducted for each rural development block as well as in the State Employment Guarantee Fund for the period from the inception of the programme in 2008 to the last financial year. The state government had submitted a few audited accounts of some blocks but the high court rejected the reports and ordered fresh audit for all.
In the next eight months, the state has to table the audited accounts in the assembly, have them examined by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India before they are made public. The high court also asked the CAG to take steps to conduct the audit on a sample basis after proper risk analysis.
After the 2013 assembly election, the directorate of audit had found large-scale corruption in the use of MGNREGA funds in the state. The younger brother of CPM youth wing's secretary and Tripura Civil Service officer Bimal Chakraborty had then been accused of siphoning off NREGA funds from Bishalgarh block.