Ahead of the Union Budget,
senior ministers of the UPA appear to be petitioning Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh with claims and counter-claims over the performance of
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MNREGA).
finance minister P. Chidambaram apparently tried to impress upon the
Prime Minister for cut in MNREGA budget, Union rural development
minister Jairam Ramesh, in a letter to Dr Singh, has rebutted his
colleague’s perception about the flagship scheme.
“Last night you
mentioned to me that FM has spoken to you about decline in employment
being generated through MNREGA,” Mr Ramesh wrote in a letter to the
Prime Minister in which he has given elaborate explanation to counter
the claim of decline in employment. In another letter to the Prime
Minister, Mr Ramesh notes “on more than one occasion agriculture
minister (Sharad Pawar) and finance minister have spoken of the negative
impact that MNREGA seems to be having on the availability of labour for
agricultural operations.
Mr Chidambaram, apparently faced with
the task to cut down the fiscal deficit, is likely to curtail the
budgetary support of the social sector schemes.
In a bid to avoid
the MNREGA becoming a victim of the cut in budgetary support, Mr Ramesh
wrote to the Prime Minister that “the total person days generated at
the end of December 2011 were around 150 crore, in contrast, the
persondays upto December 2012 were around 153 crore”. He added that
since the states are in the process of updating their data “the number
(of jobs) may go up”.
Mr Ramesh in his letter has countered the claims that women participation has gone down in the MNREGA.
“Women
persondays in 2011-12 as a proportion of total persondays was 49 per
cent upto December 2011, which has gone up to 53 per cent,” Mr Ramesh
mentioned in the letter.
The rural development minister has
further explained to the Prime Minister that the impact of the
implementation of the MNREGA has largely been positive for the
agricultural sector.