India, April 8 -- There have been gross irregularities in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Odisha, according to the recently released audit of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Due to these, the programme has not been able to fulfill its original purpose, it added.

"The scheme failed to meet the basic objective of livelihood security, which includes guaranteed employment. The reason for this was the lack of accurate assessment of the time and volume of work," the audit noted.

In contrast to the provision of 100 days of guaranteed employment to households registered under the law, the audit found that only 6.24 to 11.26 per cent of households were provided 100 days of ...