Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the government would create a biometric database of all workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and a new law for social audit to ensure that benefits of the scheme reached the people.
The Prime Minister was speaking at a function to mark the fifth anniversary of the scheme, which guarantees 100 days of employment in every financial year to any rural household whose adult members volunteer to do manual work at a daily minimum wage of Rs 100.
This year, each household has got only 35 days of work on an average.
The alleged corruption in the scheme was a sub-text in the speeches of all the dignitaries at the function, including Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. The Prime Minister said a wave of technology was the need of the hour in the country side and just as there was a cell phone in every home in the urban areas, access to technology in rural areas would pave the way for development and a change in attitude.
He said the rural development ministry was going to have the biometric database which would ensure that every action under the scheme was recorded digitally, from the demand for work to payment of wages, at the worker’s doorstep.
He did not mention about the enrollment of about 1.5 million unique identification (UID) numbers so far, which have drawn sharp reaction from activists.
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About 150 top activists and academics, including National Advisory Council members Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy, have sent a signed memorandum to the government saying UID would cripple the programme, besides it was against civil liberties.
The Prime Minister and the Congress president also called for a greater linkage between NREGS and agriculture. While the PM said NREGS should emphasise projects on water harvesting and raising of ground water levels to improve the agricultural economy, Gandhi said the scheme should help usher in a second green revolution.
She also said the Rs 40,000-crore NREGS funds could be used to make irrigation available to small and medium farmers and help them improve the productivity of their land. The Congress president also called for strengthening social audits for better implementation of the scheme and weeding out corruption.
Earlier, Deshmukh said NREGS, in its fifth year, needed more discussion on how to make it corruption-free and for this Gram Sabhas had to be strengthened.