MGNREGA social audits flagged Rs 1,677 crore in misappropriation; Rs 243 crore was recovered

Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, every work is meant to be checked by a social audit: the state’s Social Audit Unit compares the records with what was built and paid for, and the gram sabha hears the findings. When the Ministry of Rural Development was asked in Parliament how much misappropriation those audits had found, it gave a state-wise table from the scheme’s own system, NREGASoft.

As on 21 March 2025, social audits had reported 9,58,536 cases of financial misappropriation, involving Rs 1,676.83 crore. Against those cases, the ministry said, the implementing agencies had recovered Rs 242.61 crore: 14.5 per cent, or about one rupee in every seven.

Where it was found

Four states account for 72 per cent of the amount: Andhra Pradesh (Rs 423.81 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 307.01 crore), Karnataka (Rs 297.14 crore), Telangana (Rs 177.47 crore). Tamil Nadu reported the most cases, 2,88,135.

What the state figures can and cannot tell

At the other end of the table, Ladakh reported 0 cases, Gujarat reported 16 cases, Haryana reported 51 cases, Meghalaya reported 90 cases. The table counts what each state’s Social Audit Unit found and entered. A low number can mean little misappropriation, or little auditing and reporting; the figures cannot tell which, and we do not read them either way.

Two answers, sixteen months apart

On 11 August 2026, the same ministry was asked in the Lok Sabha for the state-wise number of cases of irregularities in rural development schemes over the last three years. Its answer said that grievances are referred to the states and that “the Ministry does not maintain data about such cases.” The table above, given to the same House in March 2025, came from the ministry’s own MIS. It is the most recent national, state-wise table of social-audit findings we found among the current Lok Sabha’s 34,720 answers.

What this does and does not show

• A reported case is a social-audit finding, not a conviction. The answer does not say how many cases led to disciplinary or criminal action.
• The answer gives one national recovery figure, not recovery by state, and does not say what happened to the remaining Rs 1,434.22 crore: whether cases were dropped after verification, are pending, or were written off.
• The figures run to 21 March 2025. From 1 July 2026 the scheme has been replaced by the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, the ministry told the Lok Sabha on 28 July 2026. In another answer, on 11 August 2026, it said the new framework includes “mandatory Social Audit through independent Social Audit Units”.

Got it right

Kerala’s figures, given to the Lok Sabha in December 2025, show a social audit in every one of its 941 gram panchayats in 2023-24 and 2024-25, and the state reports recovering the full amount identified as misappropriated in each of the last three years.

Every state and union territory

How we did this

• Source: the Ministry of Rural Development’s answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 3968, answered on 25 March 2025, Annexure-I, “as per NREGASoft”. Also cited: Unstarred Question 3892 (11 August 2026) and Starred Question 133 (28 July 2026).
• We found these answers by indexing every Lok Sabha answer of the current House (34,720 answers) and reading every Rural Development answer on MGNREGA, social audits and irregularities.
• Adds up: the 29 state rows sum to the table’s own total of cases exactly, and to its total amount within Rs 1,000, a rounding difference. Every total was calculated twice, by separate code.
• Download the data: mgnrega-social-audit-2025-03-21.csv. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.

Questions

Corrections

No corrections so far. If any figure here is wrong, send the correcting document to editor@oquilia.com and we will correct it and record the change on this page.