Spoiling a success

The Congress,apparently,can let no good thing go untouched by sycophancy. So it is with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It was UPA-Is bit achievement; but it was conceived with the UPAs then-allies on board,and took on,in the last term,a non-partisan flavour encouraged by the fact that the energetic and effective rural development minister,Raghuvansh Prasad Singh,was not from the Congress but the RJD. But that hasnt survived C.P. Joshi,a Congressman from Rajasthan,getting the portfolio.

The Congress has been concerned that centrally-funded schemes,like the NREGS and the National Rural Health Mission,might not bring them sufficient dividends electorally if they are associated with a non-Congress state government thats implementing them effectively. That calls for hard grassroots political work. What it does not call for is politicisation of the entire scheme. But Joshi has chosen the latter,putting at risk the broad non-partisan support the NREGS has deservedly enjoyed. Consider this: the NREGS had had implementation problems; so,very properly,the minister convened an all-party meeting to get ideas in,late last month. But the real decision-making had already taken place at a meeting a few days earlier on Rajiv Gandhis birthday,presided over by Rahul Gandhi,with only Congressman in attendance.

It was at that meeting that Joshi announced too that,since UPA-I had unconscionably not named the scheme after a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family,UPA-II would remedy that by building Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras in every village out of NREGS funds,each costing up to Rs 22 lakh. And now comes news that the advisory board of the NREGS has been rejigged to drop non-Congress MPs as well as experienced experts on rural governance,like Debu Bandopadhyay for Congress MPs. The costs of partisanship and sycophancy can be high. It is to be hoped that they do not sink the NREGS.