With the flagship programme under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) overshadowed by charges of corruption, the government is contemplating incorporating in the Act suggestions made by Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan to deter corrupt practices.
Union Minister for Rural Development C.P. Joshi said he would hold a workshop with judicial officers to evolve a system on how best the CJI’s concerns could be addressed in the implementation of the programme and root out corruption and take action against those guilty.
Admitting that complaints continued to pour in, Mr. Joshi said a number of measures had been initiated, including appointing district-level ombudsman, to monitor implementation. He said the appointments would be made soon with a directive to the State government to table the report in their Assemblies.
Also, the Ministry is determined to enlist at least 100 eminent citizens to independently supervise the mechanism to come to grips with the problem besetting the NREGA.
Releasing the quarterly report of the flagship programmes of his Ministry, Mr. Joshi hoped the proposed unique identity card, to be prepared in collaboration with the Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDA), would go a long way in plugging the loopholes.
As regards the fate of the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, Mr. Joshi sought to steer clear of the controversy bogging it down. “The Cabinet has cleared it and it is now for the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry to decide when to introduce it Parliament.”
Following objections from Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee, the United Progressive Alliance government had apparently considered it prudent not to introduce the Bill during the Budget Session of Parliament.
However, Mr. Joshi was critical of the N.C. Saxena committee saying that its recommendation that more people be brought under the below-poverty-line (BPL) list was beyond its brief and that terms of reference were only to evolve a methodology to identify households which qualified to be in the BPL list.
