A performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has pointed to significant gaps in welfare delivery to the most vulnerable tribal groups in Odisha, revealing that more than half of particularly vulnerable tribal groups remain excluded from mainstream schemes, while the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has failed to provide 100 days of compulsory employment for 90% of households.
The report, which was tabled in the State Assembly, highlights that despite spending hundreds of crores, 54% of the PVTG population – about 1.60 lakh people – has been excluded from welfare coverage, as micro enterprise agencies, the primary institutional mechanism for tribal upliftment, have failed to provide basic services to the newly notified tenements inhabited by tribals of the 13 PVTGs.
According to the report, a baseline survey in 2018-19 identified 1,138 new villages inhabited by PVTGs, yet these areas remained outside the scope of the Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihood Improvement Programme.
While 18% of these excluded families were able to obtain safe drinking water, gas delivery only reached 34% of them. In some cases, the report said, entire communities such as Birhor, which was designated as a PVTG in 1986, remained out of reach of benefits because the designated agency had not become effective.
A joint physical inspection of 69 drinking water projects showed that 55% of them were non-operational. Likewise, 58% of the irrigation projects inspected stopped operating due to lack of maintenance and repair funds. In one village, a solar irrigation project completed in 2022 was found to have stopped operating by 2024.
To combat malnutrition, the state established 116 food resource centres, but 55 of them were built at a cost of $Rs 3.59 lakh crore was found lying idle as the department failed to plan operational expenditure.
The state spent $48.29 lakh crore on 229 processing units (such as oil extraction and dhal mills) to enhance tribal income. However, the review found that 46% were non-functional, largely due to lack of electricity or poor assessment of local capacity.
A review of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), a centrally sponsored scheme designed to provide a statutory “guarantee” of 100 working days annually, found that only 6.24% to 11.26% of households seeking work actually got the full 100 working days during the period 2019-2024. In some areas, this number dropped to 0.20%.
Moreover, 1.22 lakh families in the areas examined were completely deprived of work, yet the state failed to pay the mandatory ‘unemployment allowance’ required under the law. The average annual income of families in some areas under this scheme was as low as $7256, providing only 34 days of work. Beneficiaries reported a lack of interest in the scheme due to wages falling well below the state minimum wage and chronic delays in payment.
The CAG report said that the total payments $37,380 were submitted in the names of four deceased beneficiaries in Kalimela and Chitrakonda blocks of Malkangiri district. They have been shown to be employed in manual labor for up to four years after the recorded date of death.
Of the 36.99 lakh projects started, 35% (12.96 lakh projects) remained incomplete as of March 2024, despite spending $Rs 9,898.70 crore. The state deviated $Rs 14.42 lakh crore of MGNREGS funds were allocated for school development, such as ‘e-libraries’ and ‘school atmosphere’ projects, which were explicitly rejected by the Union Ministry of Rural Development. Reviewers found $61.35 lakh crore unspent tribal welfare funds lying in bank accounts while the target population remained lacking basic amenities.
The audit found a vacancy of 54% for Gram Rozgar Sevaks (village employment assistants), the principal officials responsible for maintaining employment records and verifying employment cards under NREGS.
