Rahul visits Anantpur to commemorate 10 years of MNREGA

Anantpur : Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday arrived at Bandlapalli, Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh to commemorate ten years of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) here.

The MGNREGA was the UPA government was flagship rural job guarantee scheme, which was announced by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi in February 2006. Within two years, by April 2008, it was available in all the districts of India.

Since the scheme was first rolled out, the expenditure on the programme has amounted to over Rs 3.14 crore of which 71 percent has been spent on wage payments to workers.

Under the MGNREGA scheme, 100 days of work is given to job-card holders, which was designed as a safety net to reduce migration of the rural poor by providing them with work and wages.

A few months ago, the Centre decided to permit an additional 50 days of work in drought-hit areas under the MGNREGA scheme to provide a relief to farmers in various parts of the country.

The NDA government which was initially critical of the scheme, has continued with the programme after coming to power even as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last year dubbed it a “living monument” of Congress’ “failure” to tackle poverty in the last 60 years.

“Do you think, I will put an end to the scheme. My political wisdom does not allow me to do it. This is a living monument of your failure to tackle poverty in 60 years. With song and dance and drum beat, I will continue with the scheme,” Prime Minister Modi said during the Budget Session last year.

Congress vice-president Gandhi today questioned Prime Minister Modi’s ‘political wisdom’ for hailing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) a ’cause of national pride and celebration’ a year after dubbing it a ‘living monument of INC failure’.

“After calling NREGA ‘living monument of INC failure’ Govt now hails it as cause of ‘national pride & celebration’! Shining example of Modiji’s pol wisdom,” Gandhi said in a tweet. (ANI)