BENGALURU: BJP MP Basavaraj Bommai on Friday said that the Congress is opposing the VB-G RAM G scheme out of fear that its corrupt practices will stop.
Speaking to media persons in Bengaluru, the former CM said under the VB-G RAM G scheme, gram panchayats (GPs) have the authority to prepare lists of households with and without employment, formulate development plans, implement them, and disburse wages to labourers. “The number of guaranteed wage days has been increased from 100 to 125, which will benefit wage workers. However, the Congress is opposing the scheme out of fear that its corruption will come to an end,” he said.
Rejecting the Congress’ claims that the powers of GPs have been curtailed, Bommai said that Clause 16 of the VB-G RAM G Bill clearly grants GPs the right to verify whether households have employment or not, the authority to prepare village development plans, implement those plans, maintain all records, and pay wages.
Bommai said under the scheme, construction of school rooms is permitted, and in Karnataka alone, there is scope to build nearly 30,000 school rooms. Aadhaar seeding and digitalisation have been implemented to eliminate middlemen, he said. Under the earlier “food-for-work” scheme, wages were drawn in the name of former CM Veerendra Patil, and Gulbarga district had topped the list in irregularities in implementation, and subsequent investigations uncovered corruption, he said.
Further, Bommai said that if Congress challenges the scheme in court, its true colours will be exposed.
“Nearly 80% of schemes are named after Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi. Earlier, it was called the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, and Gandhi’s name was misused for electoral gains,” he said, responding to a question on Congress’ objection to dropping Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the rural job scheme.