Rs 935 crore misappropriated in MGNREGA schemes over last 4 years: Congress
New Delhi, Aug 21: The Congress on Saturday alleged that Rs 935 crore had been misappropriated in MGNREGA schemes over the last four years and said the government must be held accountable for failing to check corruption.
The party also demanded that the government restore the four per cent quota for differently-abled persons in police forces.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said a media report, which assessed publicly available information of the Rural Development Ministry, revealed that Rs 935 crore was misappropriated in schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) over the last four years.
These numbers are the outcome of audits done by social audit units under the Rural Development Department of the Ministry of Rural Development, he told a press conference.
Khera said the significant outcome of the social audit unit was that the primary type of misappropriation in most cases was "financial misappropriation" which includes and is not limited to bribery, payments to non-existent persons and to vendors at inflated procurement prices.
He said of the "whopping" Rs 935 crore misappropriated, only Rs 12.5 crore, which is 1.34 of the misappropriated amount, stands recovered.
The very fact that misappropriations has been happening is a testament to the lack of accountability and due diligence by the Narendra Modi government, the Congress leader alleged.
"The Congress party demands that the government of India is held accountable for the misappropriations in the MNREGA scheme and ensures that social audit is undertaken as per the provisions of the MGNREGA," Khera said.
"We also demand that the government of India recovers the misappropriated amount at the earliest and ensures that the recovered money is used to compensate the poor and marginalised who have suffered a lot due to COVID-19 mismanagement," he said.
The Congress leader claimed that Tamil Nadu had the highest misappropriation of Rs 245 crore between 2017 18 and 2020-21, and in Bihar, Rs 12.34 crore was misappropriated.
Jharkhand, then ruled by the BJP, saw misappropriations to the tune of Rs 51.29 crore, while Rajasthan did not see any misappropriation of MGNREGA funds, Khera claimed.
He alleged that this reflects on the real intentions of the BJP, whose government allowed misappropriation of Rs 935 crores of tax-payers money meant for the poor and marginalised.
Khera also demanded that the Centre withdraw the notification that scrapped the four per cent quota for differently-abled persons in police forces and undo this inhuman wrong.
With rising crimes against women under this government it is a matter of shame that more than 90 per cent of the reserved posts for women police officers are vacant, he claimed.
"We demand filling them on a war footing," Khera said.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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