Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday pledged to roll out a monthly income guarantee scheme, if his party comes to power at the Centre, to ensure India’s 20 per cent poorest families make at least Rs 12,000 every month. The scheme would cover 5 crore families and benefit nearly 25 crore people, said Gandhi after the Congress Working Committee cleared the plan that party president described as the “final assault on poverty”.
This is about justice for the poor, said Gandhi at a press conference to announce the contours of the guarantee scheme that will make its way to the Congress manifesto ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“We are going to give you justice. Remember the number… The Congress guarantees that 20 per cent of India’s poor would make at least Rs 72,000 annually,” he said, describing it as a historic move.
The Congress chief insisted that the plan was “fiscally prudent” and implementable.
This does not mean everyone would get the Rs 12,000 dole. Gandhi explained that if a family makes Rs 6,000, the government would chip in the rest to raise the monthly family income to Rs 12,000.
Back in January, Rahul Gandhi had announced the guarantee scheme but hadn’t spelt out its broad contours. The government’s think-tank NITI Aayog had then run down the plan, declaring that India neither had the kind of fiscal space, nor the kind of complete data needed to implement such a scheme.
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