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| By Santosh H K Narayan |
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Thursday, October 02, 2008 (09:00:42) |
| Tags : Rural Development, Village, Raghuvansh, Poverty |
Anti-poor, anti-village lobby active in India: Raghuvansh |
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New Delhi: Unearthing one of the major reasons behind persistent poverty in the country, particularly in villages, Union Minister for Rural Development Raguvansh Prasad Singh said that a strong and vociferous anti-poor and anti-village lobby is working which makes hue and cry over amounts allocated for poor and rural people. Speaking on 'Eradicating chronic poverty in India: Policy, issues and challenges' in JNU campus on Wednesday, he said that marginalised sections of the society also have equal rights in the resources of the country.
"When you take a million dollar loan and make a Metro, then there is no objection. But when we demand money for rural development programmes and funds for rural employment generation, the lobby asks 'where is the money'? It seems that poor people do not have any share in the resources. I think a strong anti-poor lobby is working which always feels that the money meant for rural development is going down the drain," he said.
Lauding the role of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in poverty alleviation from the country, the Minister said that the programme ensures extra income for the poor people and helps them in breaking the circle of chronic poverty and hunger, at least to some extent. "Keep aside the parameters set for measuring impoverishment. Food, cloth, house, education and medical facilities are the five basic needs of everyone. If you ensure an income of at least Rs 3000 per month, you can ensure these basic needs for them. Only by doing this, the shame of chronic poverty can be alleviated," said Rahuvansh and added that self-employment through development of skills could help in this regard.
He also called on industry conclaves like Confederation of Indian Industries to come forward in fine-tuning the skills of unemployed youth. He stressed over inclusion of local population in policy building and implementation process through Panchayati Raj institutions.
Echoing his opinion, Abhijit Sen, member of the Planning Commission, emphasised on the need for fixing accountability of the developmental programmes. "Services are best done at the level of government which is close to the people. Our political class has to ascertain where decisions are to be taken and who are going to be responsible," he said. Sen also questioned the existing poverty line and said that 15 poorest countries of the world have upper poverty lines than India. |
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