The Hindu Business Line : Yashwant Sinha regrets lack of proper monitoring for rural job scheme

Kolkata, July 12 In the name of implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, what is actually happening is virtual looting of public money, according to Mr Yashwant Sinha, BJP leader and former Union Finance Minister. “I can say from my experience that a section of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and contractors are dividing among themselves a large chunk of the funds allocated under the scheme,” Mr Sinha observed while analysing Union Budget for 2009-10 at seminar organised by Swadeshi Research Institute here on Saturday.

He regretted that there was no proper system of monitoring the scheme. “Mr Chidambaram as the Union Finance Minister had proposed constitution of a monitoring cell under the Planning Commission, but it is not known what has happened to it,” he said pointing that there was no reference to the cell in the Budget speech. “We now hear that there will be a monitoring cell under the PMO,” he observed.

Matter of concern

Mr Sinha also ridiculed Mr Mukherjee’s claim of 144 per cent rise in allocations for NRGES in 2009-10 over 2008-09. “What Pranabbabu did not mention is that the original allocation of Rs 16,000 crore in 2008-09 budget jumped to Rs 30,000 crore as per the revised estimate,” he said.

The burgeoning fiscal deficit, as he explained, was a matter of concern for several reasons. Firstly, if the past year’s experience was any indication, the bulk of the additional expenditure was due to the rise in unproductive non-Plan revenue expenditure. Secondly, what was not clear was how the huge Rs 450,000 crore of resource gap was going to be bridged. The market borrowing of this amount would push up interest rates, further dampening fresh investments. The Finance Minister’s contention that the fiscal deficit would act was stimulus therefore was untenable.

Party politics

The absence of any reform proposal in the Budget was presumably because the Congress party was afraid of antagonising Ms Mamata Banerjee and the DMK, he said expressing apprehension that the Government might go for “reforms by stealth”. It was pity that the Congress was now trying to prove that it was more pro-people than the Left presumably because nothing was left of the Left now, he observed.

Dr D.R. Agarwal, Director of the institute, said the Union Government was not paying enough attention to three critical challenges facing the economy, namely, global warming, global meltdown and rise of Maoists’ activities in different parts of the country.

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