Sonia assures her council over jobs Bill

A day before the national employment guarantee Bill is to be presented at the Union Cabinet meeting, the authors of the original Bill, Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy, met Congress chief and National Advisory Council (NAC) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and protested against the dilution of the Bill by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

The hour-long meeting saw Roy and Dreze arguing for the removal of a clause, which allows the government to "switch on and off" the programme guaranteeing 100 days employment to at least one member in a family.

They told the NAC chairperson that if the clause was not removed there would be "no guarantee" left in the Bill.

They also expressed their reservations about a possible clause in the draft Bill that talked of a review to assess whether the job guarantee scheme could be extended to the rest of the country after being implemented in select areas initially.

Gandhi reportedly told the two NAC members that she was aware of their reservations over the present form of the Bill. She said it would make more sense to let the Cabinet discuss the shape of the Bill.

The NAC chairperson said the Bill would be referred to the parliamentary standing committee once it was tabled in the Lok Sabha, where these reservations could be discussed in detail.

On the issue of review of the programme before extending it to the entire country, Gandhi said she was not privy to the shape of the Bill and hence could not say if the clause mentioned was there in the latest draft.

Roy said Dreze and she had visited Gandhi in their capacity as "citizens who are members of many campaigns" mooted to bring about the job guarantee Bill. She said it was a "peculiar anomaly" that she was also a NAC member and hence partially part of the government machinery as well.

Earlier, Dreze and Roy had gone to press over their reservations, with support from the Left parties.

Former Prime Minister VP Singh too had said the job guarantee Bill had to be applicable in the entire country and that the clause that allowed the government to terminate the programme whenever it wanted defeated the spirit of the Bill.

Bill headed for Cabinet

The Cabinet, which is meeting tomorrow is expected to take up the National Employment Guarantee Bill, which proposes to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed employment to the rural poor. It is also expected to take up a new Bill to replace the Freedom of Information Act, 2002.

Members of the National Advisory Council (NAC), Jean Derze and Aruna Roy had recently lambasted the government for seeking to dilute provisions of the Act, which was first drafted by the NAC.

Their objections were primarily centered around the fact that there was not specific time-frame mentioned for extension of the employment guarantee programme to the entire country and that the wage rate proposed to be offered by the government was not at par with the state minimum wage for agricultural labourers.