New Delhi: Marking completion of four
years of UPA government's rural employment guarantee scheme,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today admitted there were some
"lapses" in its implementation, including the problem of
payment of wages to workers.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi too listed problems like
delayed payment and unemployment allowance provisions not
being followed.
Singh said though several countries had faced very
difficult economic situation last year coupled with scanty
rainfall in the country, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) helped in providing jobs to
the rural poor and reduced the impact of global meltdown and
drought situation on the rural poor.
"Several Chief Ministers said that National Rural
Employment Programme helped our poor people in rural areas to
a great extent in facing the problems," he said at the Mahatma
Gandhi NREGA Sammelan here, marking four years of the scheme
which provided employment to more than four crore households
in the current financial year.
The Prime Minister said there has been several
achievements in the implementation of the programme but noted
there was a problem in payment of wages to workers. He said
the government was trying to improve the payment of wages
through banks and post offices.
Gandhi said the programme was doing well but there were
still problems in its implementation which needed to be sorted
out.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, February 02, 2010, 23:15