MGNREGA spending at record high, no cut in allocation, says Arun Jaitley
New Delhi: As MGNREGA completed 10 years, the NDA government on Tuesday claimed it has brought a "transformation" in the rural job guarantee scheme which was in a "pitiable" state under UPA due to frequent curtailing of funds.
Asserting that schemes are "not cast in stone" and their modification is required with the passage of time, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said MGNREGA underwent change under NDA and new initiatives were taken besides increasing the fund allocation to the scheme so that its benefits could reach the people in a better way.
"...transformation has been brought in the implementation of this scheme. When a government scheme runs for many years, an attitude of indifference develops towards it. A kind of indifference towards it was growing by 2013-14 when the scheme has entered its seventh and eight years.”
"When there was a change of government in 2014-15, there was a talk in and outside Parliament on whether the scheme will be discontinued or its fund allocation will be curtailed. But the new government not only took forward the scheme but also increased its fund," Jaitley said, delivering his key note address at MGNREGA Sammelan here.
Rural Development Minister Chudhary Birender Singh said that in last 19 months, people availing the scheme have benefited in the true sense and were contended due to correct implementation of the scheme.
Minister of State for Rural Development Sudarshan Bhagat said the condition of MGNREGA was "quite pitiable" in the beginning of the 2014-15 when UPA was in power and claimed that it was the NDA government which gave the maximum funding for the scheme.
Singh said that the attraction which is now visible for scheme is due to its "transformation in last 18 months" of the NDA rule "which did not happen in last ten years".
He also lauded Modi government for increasing the fund allocation in MGNREGA from Rs 33,000 crore to Rs 36,977 crore.
The remarks by the Union Ministers came on a day when Rahul Gandhi is in Bandlapalli village of Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh to mark the completion of ten years of UPA's flagship rural job guarantee scheme, which was launched from there by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi in February 2006.
A political slugfest on the issue has already begun. Congress, which had earlier accused Modi government of trying to "dilute" MGNREGA, has taunted the government after it had hailed the measure as a "cause of national pride and celebration" yesterday.
Rahul Gandhi today mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying his government's praise of the MGNREGA is a "shining example" of Modi's "political wisdom" as he only had called the UPA's job guarantee scheme a "living monument of Congress" failure.
"After calling NREGA 'living monument of INC failure' Govt now hails it as cause of 'nat pride & celebration'! Shining eg of Modiji's pol wisdom", the Congress Vice President said in a tweet.
The war of words on MGNREGA comes in the backdrop of Congress accusing the government of "appropriating" its icons" and "renaming" its schemes.
Jaitley claimed that it is perhaps for the first time that the actual expenditure of MGREGA is much more than that was provisioned for the financial year in the Budget. There was perhaps not a time in last many years that there was no curtailment in the fund for schemes announced in the Budget, he said taking potshots at UPA.
Under the scheme, people in rural areas are guaranteed 100 days of work.
Jaitley also complimented Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh for bringing in "transformation" in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Schemes are "not cast in stone" and their modification is required with the passage of time, he said, adding that MGNREGA underwent change and new initiatives were taken to reach its benefits to people in a better way.
"As the Rural Development Minister has rightly said that a transformation has been brought in the implementation of this scheme. When a government scheme runs for many years, an attitude of indifference develops towards it. A kind of indifference towards it was growing by 2013-14 when the scheme has entered its seventh and eight years," Jaitley said.
He further said that although India has no control over fall in international commodity, mineral and oil prices as well as global slowdown, within the country there is a need to create one more engine of growth by giving funds to the rural sector.
"We should spend more on rural electrification, irrigation and roads to witness development of rural economy. The amount of funds we can put in these sectors, it would not only help improve the sector but also boost the economic growth of the country. This is the responsibility which we are undertaking through MGNREGA," he said.
Jaitley said there are political, social and economic arguments behind putting funds in rural sector when it is stressed. "The funds that we put in that will push the economic growth".
He said the Rural Development Ministry has worked on the scheme so that there is asset creation, employment generation, money is transferred directly to bank accounts to avoid pilferage. "He (Singh) has changed the format of MGNREGA, which has helped the poor," Jaitley said.
"When there was a change of government in 2014-15, there was a talk in and outside Parliament on whether the scheme will be discontinued or its fund allocation will be curtailed.
But the new government not only took forward the scheme but also increased its fund," Jaitley said.
