HYDERABAD: Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar on Sunday called upon all gram panchayats to pass a resolution against the Union government’s move to repeal the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and send copies of those resolutions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan, along with fellow ministers Vivek Venkatswamy and Mohammad Azharuddin, he said that the economic condition of daily wage earners had improved significantly since the implementation of MGNREGA.
He recalled that the scheme was conceived after extensive consultations with experts following the formation of the Congress-led government in 2004, to strengthen the rural economy and prevent hunger and distress migration.
“BJP promised, in its 2014 election manifesto, to expand the employment guarantee scheme to urban areas. But the Centre is diluting it by shifting the financial burden onto states through a 60:40 funding pattern, thereby imposing severe fiscal stress on them,” he said and accused the Centre of attempting to remove Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme and of systematically erasing the legacy of leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi from public memory.
Labour Minister Vivek said that the Congress had consistently introduced welfare schemes that benefited the common people, and credited successive Congress leaders for major national reforms.
He described the removal of Gandhi’s name from the employment guarantee scheme as a conspiracy and alleged that the Centre was denying sufficient funds to the state and refusing to relax the FRBM limit. He demanded that the Centre bear at least 90% of the employment guarantee scheme’s expenditure.