It was Rajiv Gandhi's birth anniversary and the signature scheme of the UPA government, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, was made to wear the colours of the ruling Congress party.
The rural development ministry today organised a workshop on NREGP to mark the anniversary, where the late Prime Minister’s son, Rahul Gandhi, was guest of honour. It was announced that such a workshop would be held on every anniversary in the coming years.
Simultaneously, the ministry notified a new-look Employment Guarantee Council (which is statutorily meant to monitor the NREGP’s working). Of the 15 non-official members, only two have been retained, Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze.
Four of the 15 official members are from the Congress party. They include Members of Parliament Sandeep Dixit, Bhakta Charan Das and M I Shahnawaz and the party’s former Lok Sabha whip from Gujarat, Madhusudan Mistry.
Those who have been dropped to accommodate the MPs include Annie Raja of the CPI, Subhashini Ali of the CPM, B D Sharma, former commissioner for scheduled tribes and an activist, and D Bandopadhyay, former Secretary of the Planning Commission and the ministry of rural development.
Nana Gawande, Narayan Amlabe, Ashwani Kumar, Sanjay Dixit, Ranga Rao and K S Gopal have been included in the current council. All of them run NGOs.
Rural development secretary Rita Sharma said the term of the members had lapsed in September last year but as the government was in exit mode due to the coming elections, the new members were appointed only this week.
Civil society groups complain there is no transparency about the selection. The Act does not specify any procedure, leaving appointments to the ministry.
Rural development minister C P Joshi also announced the setting up of Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras in every one of the 2.5 lakh panchayats in the next three years. Rahul Gandhi made no speech at the function, but unveiled the blueprint of the Kendras, presented to him by the NREGP joint secretary, Amita Sharma. The plan is for a building and a panchayat ghar which, said the minister, would be used to help NREGP workers into more sustainable occupations.
Each Rajiv Kendra, designed by the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi, will cost between Rs 4-22 lakh, depending on the model selected for each village.
Rajendra Singh, Magsaysay awardee and water activist, said it was preposterous that the government was spending so much money in every village for an activity which would create neither work nor water. “If they had asked me, I would have told them to use the money to create water resources in the village, so that people would at least have enough in times of drought.”
