Sonia Gandhi at MNREGA Conference 2012 in New Delhi, 2 February, 2012

UPA chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi has asked the authorities to look into the complaints of corruption in the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, the flag ship program of the UPA Government to guarantee jobs. She along with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the presentation of awards during the inauguration of the MGNREGA Sammelan, 2012 in New Delhi on Thursday.
“Corruption in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) is a great injustice to the country and a crime in respect of the Father of the Nation after which it is named. We cannot ignore the complaints that are coming regarding the irregularities and corruption in the scheme,” said Sonia Gandhi. She expressed concern over the delay in the payment of wages to MGNREGA workers and said there was a need to ensure that they got their due remunerations, timely.
“The delay in payment of workers’ wages is illegal and unacceptable to us under any circumstances. We will have to ensure that MGNREGA workers get timely payment,” Sonia Gandhi said.
She said that the panchayats had a role in implementing the scheme and the grass roots organisation should be empowered. Sonia Gandhi claimed that the MNREGA scheme has helped arrest migration from the affected parts of the country as people were getting jobs closer to their homes.
“Officials said the ministry has been working on the suggestions to expand the job scheme to cover irrigation and its convergence with total sanitation campaign. While MGNREGA is primarily a guarantee to employment in rural areas, whether it can be also used for bringing comprehensive reform in public health sector or managing natural resources in a better way in such areas”, she added and also indicated reforms in the MNREGA policy.