— Photo: Anu Pushkarna

STRESS ON MONITORING: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at the national workshop on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in New Delhi on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI: United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday sought women's participation in the social auditing of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to make it more effective.

Delivering the valedictory address at a workshop of State Secretaries and Programme Coordinators of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) Districts, organised by the Union Rural Development Ministry here on Wednesday, Ms. Gandhi said monitoring should be an integral part of the scheme and suggested that women and self-help groups could play an in important role in making it a success.

Assuring that there would be no dearth of money in implementation of the scheme, Ms. Gandhi said if the money was spent judiciously it could change the face and lives of rural India. However, this could be done only through a social audit, she added.

Spelling out the priorities of the UPA Government as enlisted in the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP), she said high on the list was bridging the gap between the rich and the poor as also removal of disparities between the rural and urban regions.

She said the Government was committed to the implementation of the policies for the uplift of the poor and the backward.

Ms. Gandhi said the National Rural Health Mission, Bharat Nirman, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh, Mid Day Meal scheme and now the NREG Scheme were some policies aimed at bridging the divide between the privileged and the under-privileged. According to her, enactment of the Right to Information Act was another important step in this direction.

Extension of scheme

Expressing satisfaction over the implementation of the rural development schemes, Ms. Gandhi, however, said some States needed to put in more effort. Here, the district programme coordinators could play a major role, she added.

Earlier, inaugurating the workshop, Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said the NREGA would be extended to more districts in the second phase of its implementation. He said that his Ministry had approached the Planning Commission for selection of districts for extension of the scheme.

This was being done following a demand from several States. So far, 1.36 crore people have been provided employment, of the 1.40 crore people who sought employment under the NREGA.

The Minister said 3,663 mandays of work had been provided under the programme, adding that 50 per cent of the funds allocated for the current year have already been released.

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