Rural Development Minister C P Joshi's keen emphasis on the creation of "verifiable" permanent assets under the National Rural employment Guarantee Act programme to root out corruption in the forged muster rolls by culprits to pocket money in the name of the rural jobless.
The United Progressive Alliance government's flagship programme under the NREGA that proved to be a vote churner for the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections is being expanded to cover the rural artisans like masons and carpenters. So far only manual work was available to those seeking employment under the Act.
Sources said the previous Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh had introduced many checks to ensure only the needy get benefit under the Act that the funds provided to the states are not misused.
Joshi now wants to plug the loophole left in implementation to ensure the expenditure incurred under the Act is not a sheer waste and at times on paper to swallow the funds.He has asked the officials to prepare a scheme under which a register of assets created under NREGA will be maintained at the district headquarters. The programme may be further extended to construct roads as also the houses for the below poverty line (BPL) families under the Indira Awas Yojana that is being expanded to build 1.20 crore dwelling units.
Since such works require uses of machines, the ministry will allow those that can be operated by the skilled labour available in the rural areas, the sources added.
