If rural development minster CP Joshi has his way, people in rural India can become crorepatis by answering questions on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY), Indira Awas Yojna (IAY) and other welfare schemes overseen by his ministry.

“Let’s launch a Kaun Banega Crorepati for people living in villages. The questions asked should be on the slew of poverty alleviation and welfare schemes that affect them directly,” Joshi said on Thursday. The idea, he said, was to encourage people to learn the important sections and subsections of the various Acts and laws that affect them directly and the knowledge of which will help them to demand what is due to them.

Joshi said this while addressing officials from the rural development ministry, information and broadcasting ministry, rural development secretaries from states, and representatives of state institutes of rural development who had gathered in the capital for a workshop to strengthen local self-governance.

“The government of India has been spending so much money on welfare schemes targeted at people in rural India. But the tragedy is that the majority of the population is not aware of these schemes. Tell me, how many of our brothers and sisters know about the unemployment allowance clause in the NREGA, how many of them know about the Right to Information Act that they can so easily use to know why money that the government has allocated for their welfare under any scheme is not getting to them?” the minister questioned.

Knowledge about these schemes will make a huge difference in their successful implementation and launching a quiz show might just do what so much of publicity has not done, Joshi argued. “Let's give a crore to person who answers all questions on the sections and subsections of NREGA, or PESA or IAY ,” he said.