Rahul Gandhi discusses NREGA with Manmohan Singh

New Delhi, Mar 21 : After taking up the issue of relaxation of cap on the 600 billion rupees farm lain waiver scheme with the Centre, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday once again met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the effective implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (N REGA) in the country.

Gandhi led a delegation of young Congress MPs Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, and Deependra Hooda that met the Prime Minister.

Debarath Singh, Tushar Choudhary, Sandeep Dikshit and Pallam Raju were also the part of the delegation.

Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Prithviraj Chavan were also present during the meeting.

During his February 28 meeting with the Prime Minister, Rahul had suggested a centralized monitoring mechanism and better tie-ups between states for effective implementation of the scheme.

Referring to the recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report that was critical of the programme, Gandhi had said that a programme like NREGA should not be lambasted as a whole as some states have performed well in delivering the benefits.

The CAG report, which had studied the performance of NREGA in 68 districts in 26 states, had pointed out irregularities like diversion of funds and mention of work, which does not exist.

NREGA was started in February 2006 in about 200 selected districts across the country guaranteeing 100 days of manual work employment in a year to remember of each poor family in rural areas.

The programme was subsequently extended to 330 districts in the country. The scheme will be extended to all districts from 1st April 2008.

ANI