Food security act still missing in Congress-ruled states, says Modi -Governance Now

Food security act still missing in Congress-ruled states, says Modi

PM asks opponents to study the Gujarat model to understand proper implementation of MGNREGA

GN Bureau | March 3, 2016

#Narendra Modi #Congress #MGNREGA #Food Security Act

Prime minister Narendra Modi took a jibe at Congress’s pet project, National Food Security Act (NFSA), by saying that four states, out of 11 which “hurriedly” agreed to the Act, haven’t implemented it yet.

Congress-ruled states including Kerala, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, which accepted the Act haven’t done anything to implement it so far, Modi said during his speech in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

NFSA was spearheaded by the UPA government and was passed in September 2013, assuring subsidised food grains to the poor, who comprise approximately two-thirds of the 1.2 billion population of India.

Modi said that it is the BJP-ruled state Gujarat that has actively taken the Act forward, further challenging his opposition to visit the state in order to “study the model” and see the success of it.

MGNREGA, another scheme of the UPA government that guarantees 100 days of employment to the rural poor, is flawed, prime minister Modi said. “I 1,000 percent agree to the CAG report 2012 that found roots of corruption in it,” he said.

He further added that according to the CAG report, maximum benefit of the scheme was reaped by states having low number of poor people, while the ones with high number of poor did not benefit from the scheme.

The current government has allotted Rs 38,500 crore for the scheme in its budget 2016-17. On this, the prime minister said that his government wished to learn from the mistakes of the previous regime, and intends to take out “corrupt elements” from it to make it foolproof.

The present government is determined to transform the scheme in a way that it reaches to its desired beneficiaries, Modi said. We will change the structure of the scheme so that the poor gets maximum number of employment days, harassment by middlemen gets eliminated, funds allotted to the scheme are used effectively, and auditing is carried out, he added. Earlier on Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi had said in the Lok Sabha that the present government doesn't want to give credit to the UPA government for MGNREGA.

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