By IANS,
New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Saturday criticised centrally-run social welfare schemes like the national rural employment guarantee programme, and said the central government was merely indulging in “rhetoric and vote bank politics”.
“The government should take steps to constitute a joint parliamentary committee to go into this issue of corruption in MNREGA (Mahatma National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) instead of indulging in mere rhetoric and vote bank politics,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said in his speech at the National Development Council meet here.
MNREGA is a central government sponsored scheme that seeks to provide a guaranteed 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
Quoting from the mid-term appraisal of the planning commission on MNREGA, Modi said there were numerous instances of corruption and duping of workers and the planned measures of reducing leakages in the scheme were not working.
Calling the central government’s decision to ban exports of cotton arbitrary, Modi said it had resulted in a revenue loss to Gujarat farmers.
“The central government took a unilateral and arbitrary decision to ban exports of cotton on April 19, 2010. This has resulted in Gujarat farmers losing more than Rs.1,800 crore,” he said.