Rural Devp, Finance Ministries differ on NREGA

New Delhi, Feb 25: Even though the government is planning to extend the coverage of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act keeping its promise of ''inclusive growth', the difference persists between the Finance and Rural Development Ministries over the extent to which it can be done.

The Rural Development Ministry has demanded that coverage of NREGA, at present being implemented in 200 districts, be increased to 200 more districts while the Finance Ministry is insisting that it be extended to 50 more districts.

Recently, the Finance Ministry reportedly agreed to extend the NREGA to 100 more districts but the Rural Development Ministry is persisting with its demand that poor people in 200 more districts be covered under the act which gives legal guarantee of 100 days of wage employment to everybody.

''We want the NREGA to be extended to 200 more districts as there was no fund crunch. These additional districts could be covered within the existing allocation of Rs 11300 crore only,'' Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told sources.

He said that though recently, the Finance Ministry had become a bit flexible and agreed to extend it to 100 more districts, it was yet not sufficient.

''Under the provisions, the NREGA, launched over a year back, has to be extended to the entire country within five years of its launch.

That does not mean that it could not be extended earlier,'' he said.

When asked whether narrowed differences between the two ministries would mean they would compromise on about 150 districts, Dr Singh said, ''We both will abide by whatever UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi says.'' He said the new districts would be selected by the Planning Commission on the basis of their backwardness.

Pointing out that the number of people seeking employment under NREGA was much lesser than expected, he said many people, even the rich and qualified, had got their names registered and job cards issued in the hope of getting unemployment allowance. But once they realised that employment meant creating rural infrastrcucture and water conservation projects which required hard physical labour they did not opt for it.

So, the expenditure under this demand driven scheme was less and there was no question of giving unemployment allowance to them.

Regarding the implementation of NREGA to Jammu and Kashmir, Dr Singh said the state government had asked the Centre to pass a resolution regarding it in Parliament only. Earlier, the state Assembly had to pass the resolution as Jammu and Kashmir has a special status, he said. The resolution would be passed by Parliament soon to extend NREGA to Jammu and Kashmir, he added.

Unlike employment programmes in the past that were supply driven, bureaucracy controlled and suffering from large leakages, including misuse of funds arising from false muster rolls and poor project design, the NREGS is demand driven, based on a legal right, and requires Panchayati Raj Institutions to select projects relevant to the needs of the community.

UNI