NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Thursday cleared the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill that seeks to ensure 100 days of job guarantee to unemployed youth of rural India.

The Bill would be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday and sought to be passed in the current session, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy told reporters here on Thursday.

BPL norm removed

Accommodating the major recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, the Group of Ministers, formed to re-examine the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, has removed the Below Poverty Line (BPL) norm as a condition of eligibility for employment, making it universal and decided to make employment guarantee "irreversible.''

As per the fresh draft, employment should be guaranteed to anyone who offers himself or herself for work at the prescribed wages instead of being confined to only BPL job-seekers. It will also not be open to withdrawal at government directions.

The GoM that met here last month also assured payment of statutory minimum wages making State-specific minimum wages. These recommendations had also been made by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi at the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meeting on July 27. The Parliamentary Standing Committee, headed by Kalyan Singh, had presented its report on the same day.

Sources told The Hindu that the GoM, however, rejected the suggestion for a time-bound extension to the entire country but said the Bill would be gradually extended to the whole of rural India. Sticking to its earlier stand on "100 days per household per year,'' the GoM did not accept individual entitlements instead of household entitlements.

Scheme in 200 districts

Also, the scheme would be applicable in 200 districts instead of only in 150 and the Panchayati Raj Institutions would play the "principal role'' in implementation and monitoring of the Employment Guarantee Act. There would be provision for unconditional payment of unemployment allowance and the scheme would primarily be funded by the Centre but States would also contribute towards its implementation.

The ongoing National Food for Work programme will eventually be merged with the Employment Guarantee Scheme.

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