Marking completion of four years of UPA government's rural employment guarantee scheme, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday 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 achivements 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
