The government is mulling some proposals like spot payment by banks at the work-site, and deploying paid gram panchayat representatives in the banks to process the dues to address the worrying issue of late payments in its flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or NREGS.
At the same time, cutting across political lines, parties, including the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have asked for lifting the cap of 100 days of employment in the backdrop of a fall in agriculture output and the prevailing drought situation.
Rural Development Minister C P Joshi today held a meeting with all major political parties, seeking suggestions to improve the flagship scheme. While no concrete decision was taken today and a similar meeting would follow, the ministry hinted that it wanted to finalise the expansion of the NREGS soon with more work in the horticulture, forestry and water resource sector.
The ministry has also agreed to political leaders that stronger supervision and better flow of information are required.
In the meeting, while leaders like Ram Chandra Dome of the CPI(M), Lalu Prasad (RJD) and Govindrao Adik (NCP) asked for lifting the 100-day cap — Dome demanded NREGS to be extended to 200 days for each BPL family — Minister of State for Rural Development Sisir Adhikari (Trinamool Congress) pointed out that most of the states had been unable to fulfil the 100 days’ quota.
While Dome claimed that states like West Bengal and Kerala couldn’t give the full 100 days’ work as non-agricultural land was less in these states, Adhikary said many states were not spending the administrative cost properly and storing the money in bank to earn interest.