An extensive phase of India has feted Modi as the brain at the back of a bunch of welfare measures which are changing the economic system slowly however virtually. At the equal time, some other phase has known as him out on what it says is loss of originality — that Modi merely copied, modified or re-branded as his own a lot of Manmohan-era schemes.
Few things lend themselves to the second section’s narrative the manner NREGA does. Call it an about-flip if you may, but information indicates that the PM did deftly use one Jaitley budget after some other to eventually Modi-fy a scheme that he used to critique before he came to electricity.
The MGNREGA scheme, delivered in 2005 under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, guarantees unskilled guide work to each grownup for at least one hundred days in rural India. Work taken up under the scheme includes herbal aid management projects which includes irrigation, land improvement, water conservation and the like. These basically consist of constructing irrigation channels, dams, test dams, ponds, wells, and so forth. The scheme additionally covers the putting in place of Anganwadi property.
After coming to strength in 2014, no longer best did Modi not scrap the flagship Congress scheme, he in reality superior it’s miles many methods. Modi stated, “Do you think I will position stop to the scheme? My political wisdom does now not allow me to do it.”
Modi even took a no longer-so-diffused dig at UPA in his cope with at the 2015 Budget consultation: “This is a living monument on your failure to address poverty in 60 years. With song and dance and drum beat, I will hold with the scheme.”
Allocation to MGNREGA was Rs 33,000 crore in the 2013-14 Budget. The first Budget of Mthe Modi government raised the allocation marginally to Rs 33,353 crore.
The NDA authorities’s stance become that the scheme could be greater over the years to make it more efficient. “The authorities is devoted to supplying salary and self-employment possibilities in rural regions. However, wage employment might be provided underneath MGNREGA through works which might be extra productive, asset developing and substantially linked to agriculture and allied sports,” Finance minister Jaitley said in his 2014 price range speech.
In the 2015-sixteen Budget, Jaitley gave NREGA Rs 34,699 crore to the scheme, the highest ever until then. It represented a almost 12 per cent upward push over the previous fiscal.
The next budget (2016-17) raised it even further. “Rs 38,500 crore have been allotted for MGNREGA in 2016-17. If the full amount is spent, it is going to be hthe ighest budget spend on MGNREGA,” Jaitely stated in his speech that yr.
In the 2016-17 Budget, the scheme became allocated Rs forty seven,499 crore. Of this Rs 38,500 crore got here with the aid of manner of budgetary allocation at the same time as the relaxation came thru supplementary presents.
The allocation went up a bit more in the next economic 12 months (2017-18) to Rs 48,000 crore. The primary government made available an extra Rs 7,000 crore to the scheme after states raised needs for extra funds.
Jaitley took it even higher the subsequent 12 months with an allocation of Rs fifty five,000 crore for 2018-19.
Here is a observe the entire availability of price range (budgetary allocation plus others) and overall expenditure over the years below Team Jaitley*:
And it changed into now not pretty much budgetary allocation. Modi authorities gave NREGA a huge facelift with the aid of beginning geo-tagging of assets created beneath the scheme. Apart of creating identity and tracking of property less complicated, such tagging additionally streamlines additional developmental works on athe lready current property.
The exercising that started out in 2016 changed into an try to test leakages and convey in transparency. It was supposed to identify all key parameters of a sure task — the nature of the work, finances allocated and used, variety of employees and the final task outcome.