Jairam Ramesh proposes concurrent audit of rural welfare schemes

NEW DELHI: The rural development ministry has mooted the idea of concurrent evaluation of welfare schemes. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has put forward a proposal to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, outlining the proposed concurrent evaluation network to improve the efficiency and quality of outcomes of all rural development schemes.

The government's annual budget for rural development comes second only to defence. In the current fiscal, the ministry's allocation (including spend on drinking water and sanitation) is 88,000 crore.

The ministry has nine major schemes for states which have different economic and population parameters.

"You have often expressed the need to ensure the effectiveness of this large quantum of public expenditure. Social audit indeed is very much a part of our rural development programmes, particularly MGNREGA. Other programmes also have inbuilt mechanisms to ensure quality.

A concurrent evaluation of these schemes would be helpful to policymakers to intervene on real-time basis," Ramesh said in his letter. The proposal, which has the support of the Plan panel, could help in effective fund allocation.

The budget season has ministries lobbying for higher allocations. The most common refrain from Finmin and Plan panel is that allocations for many programmes are not utilised or they are ineffective. Recently, Ramesh asked for 15,000 for the rural drinking water scheme but the Plan panel recommended 10,500 crore.

Efforts by the minister resulted in an increased allocation for the drinking water programme, but it saw cut in funds for another programme. If there is simultaneous assessment, it would help streamline the process of fund allocation while ensuring allocations are utilized in an effective manner.