Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday stated that the Centrally-sponsored Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is not a permanent solution for providing jobs in rural areas. The minister said that the MGNREGS should be a transition programme for about 25 years. Mr Ramesh said that the rural job scheme should stay for some years in certain areas where there are demands for distress employment. The minister was speaking at a function to release a report on rural development prepared by IDFC. Apparently addressing criticism that MGNREGA is not creating durable assets, Mr Ramesh said that the government would soon bring in changes improve the quality of works undertaken by the scheme. While speaking about the flagship scheme, Mr Ramesh admitted that all the objectives of the programme can not be met at the same time. He said that the problem in implementation of the scheme is due to conflicting nature of three objectives of the programme. “The objective number one of the NREGA is to providing wages, objective number two is to create government community assets and three is to empower gram panchayats,” said Mr Ramesh, adding that “at no point of time all the three objectives can be achieved”. On the upcoming changes in the scheme, Mr Ramesh said that the government would bring in skill development as part of the MGNREGA. He said that one such programme is going to be launched in Maoist-affected areas under which 50,000 youth would be trained and given jobs. Mr Ramesh, while praising the scheme, said that the MGNREGA has significantly reduced distress migration from states such as Bihar and Orissa to Punjab and Haryana. He claimed that even railways has seen the trend, as less passengers have travelled between the two places.
