New Delhi, (The Telegraph): Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his ministers to publicise in a "big way" the tweaked versions of the UPA's signature social programmes, MNREGA and Aadhaar, which he ridiculed in the past.
The Centre is to shortly launch a pilot project for making payments under the rural jobs scheme MNREGA to the bank accounts of targeted beneficiaries through Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT). Aadhaar data will be used for the transfer to speed up payments, remove leakages and augment financial inclusion.
Modi said a sum of Rs 335 crore has been allocated to Kerala where the DBT scheme will first be tried out.
During the campaign for the 2014 elections, Modi had described Aadhaar as a "scam". Last February, he said MNREGA was "proof" of the UPA's "failings".
The Prime Minister had called a meeting of his entire council of ministers. The agriculture and agri-related ministries were asked to make presentations on programmes they had to implement based on cabinet decisions, update the council on the status of each programme and give a timeline for their completion, with details of how deadlines would be met.
The cabinet secretary opened the discussions with an overall presentation on the ministries concerned.
"The idea was to familiarise those from the other ministries with the nitty-gritty of the agri-related departments and draw a big picture so that we get talking points to take back to our constituencies," a minister said.
Modi also asked the ministers to publicise the easy availability of fertilisers and urea. "In the past, the Centre used to be flooded with entreaties from the states complaining of fertiliser shortages. Lathicharges on farmers laying siege on fertiliser godowns used to be frequent. That has stopped," a minister quoted Modi as saying.
The Prime Minister also asked his colleagues to speak at length on payments made to sugar mills to enable them to clear arrears due to sugarcane cultivators.
Such sector-specific meetings will be held each month. A meeting of the social welfare ministries has been scheduled in February.
Government sources said an objective of the monthly meetings was to give the Prime Minister a chance to assess the performance of each minister and get a sense before shuffling his team.
"If we interact one-on-one with the Prime Minister and discuss our ministry, we have no idea of how our colleagues are performing. Such a large gathering enables us also to make a judgement, compare our performance with our colleagues and look for ways of enhancing it. This sort of meeting kindles competitiveness among us," a junior minister said.
