{"id":10684,"date":"2011-03-02T21:48:28","date_gmt":"2011-03-02T21:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drishtikone\/2011\/03\/india-budget-special-poverty-programs-ideal-tool-national-plunder\/"},"modified":"2011-03-02T21:48:28","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T21:48:28","slug":"india-budget-special-poverty-programs-ideal-tool-national-plunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drishtikone\/2011\/03\/india-budget-special-poverty-programs-ideal-tool-national-plunder\/","title":{"rendered":"India Budget Special: Poverty Programs – the ideal tool of National Plunder!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"National<\/a>In this year\u2019s Economic budget, the Indian Government has allocated Rs 40,100 crore for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) program, in addition to the Rs.64000 crore sought by the Ministry of Rural Development for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.Reforms for the education to workers. That equals $22 Billion<\/b>! That is more than the entire GDP of Bahrain and just about equal to Cyprus. Just for comparisons. This year, ladies and gentlemen, we will spend on poverty more than what entire Bahrain earns in an year.<\/p>\n

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates\u2013died of malnutrition\u2013because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. ~ The Grapes of Wrath<\/i> By John Steinbeck<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the kind of outlays that Indian Government has for the poverty programs, we shouldn\u2019t have any poverty. And these programs have been going on for ages. So, we should be a fairly rich country. Or at the very least a country with no abject poverty. Think again!! On an average, a new kid is better off born in Sub Saharan Africa, than in India! 42.5% of our young children are malnurshed, a rate worse than many sub-saharan countries. 1 in 3 malnurshed children on Earth live in India. (As Indian Growth Soars, Child Hunger Persists<\/a>).<\/p>\n

These programs \u2013 what with the very exalted names of Mahatama Gandhi and other guys prefixed to them \u2013 look great on paper, but don\u2019t have much integrity to them. Times of India called such programs \u201cLoot for Work Program\u201d<\/a> (this study was for National Food For Work Programme (NFFWP) \u2013 which was an interim arrangement for NREGA \u2013 but its all the same kind of work and apparatus.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026. muster rolls are virtually impossible to obtain. Even with a letter of introduction from NC Saxena, commissioner of the Supreme Court, the investigators faced difficulties in obtaining sample muster rolls for verification. And the verifications they were able to carry out showed that much of the information contained in muster rolls was fake.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to a Draft Performance Audit, released by the Comptroller and Audit General (CAG) of India; in 2008, an audit by its office showed that the NREGA programs have been a failure. They did an audit on randomly picked 68 districts out of the 200 chosen for the 1st phase. For the period Feb\u201906 through Mar\u201907, the number announced by the Ministry of Rural Development were:<\/p>\n

Households receiving Employment = 21 million
\nHouseholds receiving 100 days of employment = 2.2 million<\/p>\n

CAG study found the actual figures were Households receiving 100 days of employment = 70400! (3.2%)<\/p>\n

Not just CAG, even the PArliamentary Action Committee, has found things aren\u2019t as hunkry dory with the NREGA scheme as it is all made out to be. As per the committee<\/a>, the main issue is \u201cGovernment\u2019s failure to ensure minimum wages to the workers even as quality of assets created were by and large sub-standard, non-durable and non-productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corruption, fudging in muster rolls, discrepancies in work days and payments for NREGA is rampant. The Government of course has contributed to enhancing the levels of corruption and rampant loot going on of tax payers money. Since February 2006, Rs. 1.08 lakh crores ($22 Billion) has been released under the scheme, but the Central Government has never carried out Account Audit of the program ever!<\/p>\n

No one knows where or how the money was spent on. If CAG\u2019s audit report \u2013 juxtaposed against the numbers issues by Ministry of Rural Development are any indication \u2013 then you might be better off asking your neighborhood street dog about the numbers than the Union Minister or even Indian\u2019s PM! The inaccuracy of your estimation of the work NOT done wouldn\u2019t be affected much!<\/p>\n

The same nonsensical situation goes on for another of the scheme funded under this year\u2019s budget \u2013 Bharat Nirman. The lack of performance<\/a> is remarkable.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s ambitious plan to build the country\u2019s rural electricity infrastructure under the Bharat Nirman programme is miserably short of its target. Four years after its launch, only seven of the 27 participating states have finalised plans. The scheme is to end in March-April 2009<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If these programs \u2013 with lofty names and even loftier aims \u2013 do not work and end up lining the pockets of politicians and bureaucrats who siphon off the money to Foreign Banks \u2013 then why have these programs? Why should the money \u2013 paid by honest taxpayers be diverted into such useless ventures?<\/p>\n

If poverty was being eradicated, then great. Nothing has happened there it seems. We are competing with Sub-Saharan Africa on that front. Yes, we are competing with US on technology front. But the numbers on the poorer side of the competition are mind-bogglingly high!<\/p>\n

With the numbers involved, and with the CONSCIOUS and DELIBERATE attempt to push such amounts of moneys \u2013 of ordinary tax payer \u2013 into black holes of corruption \u2013 one wonders why the Government Programs themselves shouldn\u2019t be the most amazing scams being perpetrated on Indian citizens?<\/p>\n

Indian citizens meanwhile don\u2019t care much. No TV analyst, no Opposition Party leader, no economist, no commentator ever comments on the deafening sucking sound of this huge money flow from middle class to political elite and then finally outside of the country, never to be used for our economy productively! Did you hear about this in any Budget analysis this year? <\/p>\n

Why not?<\/p>\n

Are we too busy analyzing the chairs on the deck of Titanic? Is that the level of our attention and intelligence? Upward and Downward movement of the ship at this time is not about waves, but about the coming disaster. No country has continued with unlimited and unrestricted loot for so long by so many .. with success!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this year’s Economic budget, the Indian Government has allocated Rs 40,100 crore for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) program, in addition to the Rs.64000 crore sought by the Min<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1517,"featured_media":12150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,57,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-politics","category-poverty"],"yoast_head":"\nIndia Budget Special: Poverty Programs - the ideal tool of National Plunder!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this year's Economic budget, the Indian Government has allocated Rs 40,100 crore for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) program, in addition to the Rs.64000 crore sought by the Min\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/drishtikone\/2011\/03\/india-budget-special-poverty-programs-ideal-tool-national-plunder\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"India Budget Special: Poverty Programs - 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