Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will face threat if the Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power in the Centre, according to MP and Congress candidate for Virudhunagar constituency B. Manicka Tagore.
Addressing the electorate of Tirumangalam Assembly constituency on Sunday, he said the affluent had conspired and influenced the BJP-led alliance for scrapping the rural job guarantee scheme that was introduced by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. “In the past seven years, the job guarantee scheme continued to serve the people by providing them a dignified job in their villages, irrespective of the party ruling the State. In the last three years, the scheme has become the lifeline for people, as the monsoon failure affected farming activities,” he said.
Initially, the scheme fetched the beneficiaries a daily wage of Rs. 45 and guaranteed them 100 days of work. But, now the beneficiaries were getting a daily wage of Rs. 148. The Congress Government which had been allocating Rs. 24,000 crore for implementing the programme is mulling to increase the number of guaranteed days of employment to 150 days and also increase the wages to Rs. 200.
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“If you want the scheme to continue, you need to support the Congress in the Lok Sabha election and help its leader Rahul Gandhi become the next Prime Minister,” Mr. Tagore said.