New Delhi: The internal mechanism meant to flag and check the misappropriation of funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) is ailing due to many factors, according to The Hindu.The social audit units, which are meant to detect any cases of malpractice, are suffering because they are fund-starved and do not have trained or adequate personnel working for them. The social audit unit’s sole responsibility is to flag cases of malpractice, following which recovering misappropriated money – and reprimanding the officials responsible – is the job of the state government.Even among cases flagged by the social audit units, the recovery of embezzled funds has been dismal, according to The Hindu. Data from the Union rural development ministry for the ongoing financial year shows that less than 14% of the amount flagged by auditors has been recovered so far. While the social audit units flagged misappropriation of Rs 27.5 crore, the amount came down to Rs 9.5 crore after action was taken in some cases. But so far, only Rs 1.31 crore (13.8%) has been recovered so far.In previous financial years too, the recovery has been poor. In FY 2022-23, just Rs 18 crore (20.8%) of the flagged amount of Rs 86.2 crore was recovered. In FY 2021-22, misappropriation worth Rs 171 crore was flagged but only Rs 26 crore (15%) was recovered.According to The Hindu, the ministry held a day-long seminar on September 26 to take stock of the situation. Apart from social audit units, MGNREGA commissioners, civil society and other stakeholders were also part of the seminar.Rakshita Swamy from the Social Accountability Forum for Action and Research (SAFAR) told the newspaper that the dismal recovery rate threatens the credibility of the audit process and makes the entire exercise futile.“The Union government has weaponised the lack of social audits to withhold funds for MGNREGA for the States. But the Ministry, which directly funds the social audit units so that they are able to maintain their independence from the States, is not getting funds to them in time. For example, units in Karnataka and Bihar have not got funds for nearly two years now,” she said.Nikhil Dey, founder member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, said that while the Union government’s vigilance and pressure on the states to recover the misappropriated money is welcome, the bigger problem is that some states claim there are no cases of misappropriation. “[This] clearly means there is no monitoring here,” Dey said told The Hindu.The report said that over the past three years, BJP-ruled states like Gujarat, Goa and also Meghalaya have reported “zero number of cases” and made “zero recoveries”.