On job bill, Kalyan home alone

Singh maintained that to make the job guarantee truly universal, the beneficiary should be the individual and not the family. In rural India, where large joint families continue to be the norm, confining jobs to just one member was unfair and would lead to strife within households, he said. At the rate of Rs 60 per day, 100 days of guaranteed work amounted to just Rs 500 per month per family—a sum that could not deliver the promise of eradicating rural poverty, he said.

He also suggested that rural works requiring a minimum of 10 workers—and not 50—should be taken up under the NREG programme.

His third suggestion, which drew applause from several MPs, was that any bureaucrat whose corruption in implementing the programme was proved should face a fine of Rs 5,000 and three months imprisonment—panchayat members should be barred from contesting elections for five years.

He also said that state governments did not have requisite funds to provide 10 per cent of the cost as envisaged in the bill. Since it was a central scheme, the Central Government should have borne the entire expense, he added.

BJP leaders privately conceded that the party could have taken up Kalyan Singh’s suggestions in a collective manner earlier. With six BJP-ruled state governments, the BJP could have also forcefully demanded that the Centre fund the scheme—a demand that was made by West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta who specially flew down to Delhi to discuss the bill with UPA ministers.

But the BJP’s lack of interest in playing the role of a constructive opposition on an issue affecting lakhs of rural Indians was evident in the House today. Even Leader of Opposition L K Advani chose to stay away.