Congress on Saturday questioned the need for renaming the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) scheme and asked, “What is wrong with the name Mahatma Gandhi” that the Government had to take this step. Reacting to the development, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the Modi Government is a “master” at renaming schemes and laws.
“They renamed the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, and the rural LPG distribution programme to Ujjwala. They are experts in re-packaging and branding,” he said. “They hate Pandit Nehru but it seems they also hate Mahatma Gandhi. What’s wrong with the name Mahatma Gandhi, why rename the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to Pujya Bapu Employment Guarantee Scheme?” Ramesh said.
The Union Cabinet on Friday approved a Bill to rename the MGNREGA and increase the number of work days, sources said. According to them, the scheme will now be renamed as ‘Poojya Bapu Grameen Rozgar Yojna’, and the number of work days under it would be increased from 100 days at present to 125 days.
Congress general secretary in-charge of the organisation, K C Venugopal, said the PM, who once called MGNREGA a “monument of failure,” is now renaming it to claim credit for the revolutionary scheme. “It’s yet another way of erasing Mahatma Gandhi from our national psyche, especially from the villages, where, he said, India’s soul resides,” he alleged.
“This move is also nothing but a cosmetic change to paper over the deliberate neglect being meted out to this scheme,” Venugopal said. MGNREGA workers have been demanding higher wages, but the Centre has been reducing allocated funds for the scheme year after year, he said.
“The arrears keep piling up, and it seems to be a carefully planned strategy to engineer a slow death for the scheme. In reality, this Government has no intent of delivering welfare — and is merely putting up a pretence when it has run out of ideas,” Venugopal alleged. “But Modi, rename it all you want, the people know it was Dr Manmohan Singh and Smt Sonia Gandhi ji who brought this transformative scheme to every village of India,” he said.
The scheme, better known as MGNREGA or NREGA, is a flagship scheme of the Government aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment.
In a financial year, to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. It was enacted in 2005.
