Karnataka - Bangalore

Widen scope of NREG Act: CJ

BANGALORE: Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court P.D. Dinakaran has called for widening the scope of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

He was chairing a session on “Constraints and difficulties faced by Government in implementation of NREGS” on the second day of the two-day “Initiative on supporting the NREGS through State legal services authorities,” here on Sunday.

Mr. Dinakaran said the scope of the Act should be widened to include other classes of poor people and give them the benefit of earning Rs. 100 per day by working in their own fields. He said due to the inability of the government to include more people, farm labourers were going to cities for jobs.

Many land-owning farmers had started taking up odd jobs in cities. He said that if corrective measures were not taken urgently, even a well-meaning scheme like NREGS would suffer loss of beneficiaries.

Mr. Dinakaran said those in charge of NREGS should infuse more portfolios into it, including watershed development, preserving and maintaining water bodies, development of agricultural land and expansion of road connectivity.

He said that if the NREGS failed, it would be nothing but a systemic failure and the executive would be largely responsible for it. He said the Government would have to do everything to prevent the NREGS from failing.

Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, P. Ravikumar said the main objective of the NREGS was to keep the rural people and farmers from coming to urban areas and lead a dignified life as farmers in their own villages. He said there was a vast scope for improving the funding of the NREGS. He said Rajasthan got Rs. 35,000 crore followed by Andhra Pradesh with Rs.18,000 crore.

Chief Executive Officer of the Dharwad Zilla Panchayat C. Shikha and Commissioner, Department of Rural Development, Santhi Kumar spoke about the progress of the scheme in Andhra Pradesh.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu