New Delhi: Almost three months into his first stint with the federal government as minister for rural development and panchayati raj, Congress leader C.P. Joshi has ambitious plans to expand the scope and reach of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or NREGA, the flagship programme of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Balancing act: Congress leader and minister for rural development and panchayati raj C.P. Joshi at his office. Rajkumar / Mint
Ahead of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary on 20 August, when the government is expected to announce a bigger and better NREGA, Joshi spoke to Mint about his plans, the need to bring in greater transparency and accountability into the employee guarantee scheme, and the controversial land acquisition Bill. Edited excerpts:
What plans do you have for NREGA? Are you planning any major restructuring? There are reports that you plan to make certain announcements on 20 August (former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday).
These are just media reports about phase I or phase II. I am not concerned about that. Basically, in the President’s address it was categorically mentioned that one, we will expand the scope of activities under NREGA; two, there would be convergence; and three, we would have transparency. So we have to address these three issues.
We need a system where there is accountability and transparency. We are holding discussions with different stakeholders.
So, transparency is a key focus area?
It is one of the most important things. People should know where the money is spent. The poor person who is working under this Act should get his wages. Instead, people are extracting money from the poor. We want to deliberate all this on 20 August, after holding discussions with the stakeholders.
On the last day of Parliament (7 August, the last day of the budget session of Parliament), I said that I would invite all political leaders to discuss this.
Do you think the positioning of NREGA is going wrong? Has it lost sight of its purpose as a safety net and become more of an employment generating scheme?
This is just the perception of those who don’t live in villages and don’t understand people’s problems. The Act categorically states that it guarantees 100 days of work to the poor who cannot do skilled or semi-skilled labour, but only manual work. But people now say why not create (assets) for development. Development is a different aspect and catering to this need is a different aspect.
So basically, this Act targets the poor, vulnerable sections, who do not have any skills. We have to gradually shift to semi-skilled and then to skilled. We are thinking of how to move from this stage to that.
Another criticism of NREGA is that the need and scope for asset creation under it is limited. How do you propose to overcome that?