Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh proved his nickname ‘super CM’ nearly justified when he rapped Chief Minister Hemant Soren first for not coming in time and later went ahead putting onus on the poor Governance for making schemes like MGNREGA and others falter in the State. However, when his turn arrived, the CM also questioned the Minister going gaga on the rural job scheme.
Both the bigwigs came face to face on Friday in a programme on convergence of schemes under MGNREGA, National Rural livelihood Mission and Catalytic Development Programme (CDP) when Ramesh pulled up the CM for arriving about 50 minutes late than the scheduled start.
“When the CM arrived I saw his watch is stuck at 1.30! I drew his attention to it and he said that he has worn this watch after long and thus it got stopped. Mr CM, please have a habit to wear watch and start wearing it from today,” said Ramesh at the beginning of his address. Similar was the case when Ramesh had arrived in time at lali panchayat of Namkum to inaugurate MGNREGA payment through Aadhaar and waited for the CM for about 1.45 hours to begin the programme about a month ago.
The outspoken Minister went ahead and questioned the administrative setup, political leadership and level transparency prevailing in the State to make development schemes successful. “MGNREGA is being criticised and rightly so. But what I think is an impressive show in Jharkhand about the scheme and it is digging 90,000 wells in rural areas. These well are not on paper. It has brought above two lakh hectares of land under irrigation,” said Ramesh and called upon the State Government to take up more such initiatives so that the people could repose faith in the rural job scheme.
He also advised the CM for studying the Andhra Pradesh model on woman self-help groups and carve-out a separate financial institution for women so that bank loans can be made available to them. “You should not worry about the fund (from the Centre). What Jharkhand needs are administration, political leadership and transparency. Don’t shift officials after every three months,” said Ramesh promising three lakh woman SHGs in next three years and bank loan at seven per cent interest.
When his turn came Hemant Soren also gave befitting reply to his open criticism. “Schemes and programmes are made but there is no way out for under development, unemployment and migration. Rather these problems are growing. You are talking about 90,000 wells. Those would have been built but are not sufficient. Those are also not visible in far flung areas,” said Soren questioning the success story narrated by Ramesh.
He rather sought for some rectification in the scheme and demanded for inclusion of farming activities on personal land and not just to keep it confined to digging trenches and building roads that also in rocky terrain making the work extremely difficult for labourers.
The initiative from the Jharkhand State livelihood Promotion Society would see the rural job widening it up and including tussar, lac, cashew and rubber cultivation by bringing one lakh degraded forest land under plantation on yearly basis. This would not only promote sustainable employment to huge labour force available in the State but also creating some permanent assets. Ramesh also used the occasion to mention that 2.5 lakh toilets would be built using MGNREGA funds in Jharkhand.