Not content with various monitoring bodies created to keep an eye on the implementation of the sundry welfare schemes, the top babus of the rural development ministry have deputed themselves as the final ombudsmen and will monitor NREGA, Indra Awas Yojna (IAY), Swarna Jayanti Gramin Swarojgar Yojna (SGSY) and others schemes of the ministry themselves.

So, while the joint secretary (NREGA) Amita Sharma will watch over the rural development schemes in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Nagaland, and Goa, joint secretary (SGSY) T Vijay Bhaskar will monitor the same in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, and Arunachal Pradesh. Another Joint Secretary (Admin) Nitin Chandra will look after the schemes in Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra,
Himachal Pradesh, and Manipur.

Each officer will monitor the schemes through the help of a team constituted from officers of his own division. The officer who will be called the team leader will depute a team member to his allocated state and ensure the member visits the state at least twice a year.

The team leaders will be required to furnish a status report of the visits their team members to the monitoring division at the end of each quarter.

The team members who will be called area officers will undertaken the following responsibilities: make field visits at least twice in a year; strive to cover two districts in each visit. Minimum of two; review the programmes of the other Departments of the Ministry, if implemented in the blocks visited; inform the local MP (Chairman/Co-Chairmen of District V&MC) well before the visit and meet him to discuss about the progress of the RD programmes in the district, if feasible ; review the functioning of V&MCs in the district. If meetings are not held regularly, reasons are to be indicated in the report; make a brief assessment of the performance of the NLMs who have visited the district during the year should also be made, through interactions with officials and the public at large.

After the field visit, the Area Officer may debrief the State Secretary in charge of the RD programmes and the Chief of the Implementing Agency in the District. A copy of the complete Report should be e-communicated to secretary (RD) of the state, district collector /CEO of zilla panchayat. One copy should be endorsed to Monitoring Division.