Arun Jaitley Calls For Increased Public Spending On Rural Development

According to the provisions of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), money to workers for the job done had to be disbursed within 15 days but this was happening in only 44% of the cases. “In fact, this will be the first year when provisions for development have been made in this scheme”, Jaitley said.

Addressing a MGNREGA Sammelan organised to mark the completion of 10 years of the scheme, Jaitley said there were apprehensions that the NDA government would end or replace the scheme with a new programme.

Roy said that although the political leadership of the Congress, including Sonia and Rahul, were supportive of the MGNREGA, the UPA II government was divided over the scheme.

Investing in social sector programmes such as the rural job guarantee scheme will benefit the hinterland, which is another “engine” that will pull the Indian economy towards higher growth, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday.

“This country’s financial system had a practice that when a Budget is presented, people discuss how much money has been allocated”. In 2008 the coverage extended to include all districts and in following six years, an amount of Rs. 2 lakh crore were allocated under MNREGA scheme.

In a statement, the Rural Development Ministry today said that the achievements of MGNREGA of a decade are a cause of national pride and celebration. But when Modi took the reins into his hands, the allocation was increased to Rs 34,000 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 35,000 crore for 2015-16. Criticising the implementation of the scheme during the tenure of the UPA government, which introduced the scheme, Jaitley said that in its 7-8th year “a sadness that was creeping into the scheme”.

On Tuesday, the main Opposition party Congress had dubbed as “better late than never” the Narendra Modi government’s praise of MGNREGA saying “it shows how the landmark legislation has changed the lives of the rural poor”.

Gandhi’s reference was to the Prime Minister’s snide remarks about the UPA’s flagship scheme during the Budget Session past year.

“One engine to grow further, despite the global slowdown that has also impacted our exports, can be by improving the rural economy”.

He said, the focus for the upcoming years will be on simplification and strengthening of procedures and a master circular is being issued which consolidates all key instructions from the central government on the implementation of the Act.

Gandhi said a few days ago Jaitley came to invite him for his daughter’s marriage and appreciated MGNREGA. “The private sector is not being able to contribute much (to economic growth today)”. After we took over, there were speculations over possibilities of govt either cutting down the funds for MGNREGA or renaming the scheme.

The personday generation is the highest in the second quarter (45.88 crore) and third quarter (46.10 crore) than it has been in the last five years.