Vijayawada: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Tuesday, visited Bandlapalli village in Andhra Pradesh to mark the completion of ten years of UPA's flagship rural job scheme MNREGA.
Rahul chose Bandlapalli as it was from this village in Anantpur district that then PM Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had launched the scheme in 2006.
Rahul interacted with villagers and later had lunch with.
The United Progressive Alliance government had then described the MNREGA as "a landmark in our history in removing poverty from the face of the nation".
MNREGA provides 100 days of work to rural job card holders. The scheme that has been designed as a safety net to reduce migration by rural poor by providing them work and wage close to their homes.
Though initially critical of its impact, the Narendra Modi government later chose to continue with it.
Rural Development minister Birender Singh recently wrote a letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to sanction an "additional fund of Rs. 5,000 crore for the scheme".
