“We have not been communicated about the reconstitution of the CEGC as yet. It will be unfair on our part to enquire about it from the ministry, as it may be considered as lobbying for re-nomination,” one of the non-official members of the previous CEGC said, adding that there’s been no stock tacking of the implementation of the scheme despite rules making it mandatory for meetings to happen once every six months.
The previous CEGC comprised noted NREGS activists Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze along with a battery of Congress leaders. The CEGC formed six working groups on wages, transparency and accountability, planning, scope of works, equity and social security, and management issues involved in the implementation at the grassroots level. All the working groups had submitted their recommendations to the ministry. Several members — Madhusudan Mistry, Ashwani Kumar, Sanjay Dixit, R Dhruvanarayana, K S Gopal — had visited various states for a reality check on the implementation of the NREGS.
“We could not not complete the follow-up of the recommendations of the various working groups. Members have stopped visiting states as the CEGC has become defunct,” said another CEGC member.
The absence of CEGC holds significance in the wake of recent concerns expressed by NAC chairperson Sonia Gandhi over the loopholes in the implementation of the scheme. Incidentally, there was no hint of the reconstitution of the CEGC during the official function organised to mark the completion of five years of the NREGS on February 2.