Religion, Caste And Tribe Based Reservation - 3

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Burnt by quota, Cong looks to job act </b>
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
 
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060526/asp/...ry_6271236.asp#

New Delhi, May 25: <b>Where Arjun Singh’s brainchild has stumbled, the Congress hopes Sonia Gandhi’s pet agenda will score.</b>

With the Other Backward Classes quota hobbling its plans to court “young, urban India” — and bringing no gains in the heartland’s villages either — <b>the party is banking on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to widen its vote base</b>.

The Congress is all set to pep up its cadre about the ruling alliance’s “star” legislation and ask them to find out if it’s being properly implemented on the ground.

The party has realised that the scheme — which promises every rural household wage employment for one member for at least 100 days a year —<b> is a better bet in wooing the rural underprivileged than OBC reservation</b>.

The Congress has made no headway among the backward classes of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with the quota, thanks to the absence of a credible backward-class face in its ranks to counter Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayavati and Lalu Prasad.

So, the party has called a meeting of district Congress committees tomorrow to discuss the job guarantee scheme. It will be inaugurated by Sonia and addressed by Manmohan Singh.

“It’s our way of signalling to the Prime Minister that he must steer the government on a different track, and that is a track which concerns the aam- aadmi and not the sensex-gobbling classes of the cities,” an office-bearer said.

“He must understand that India lives in the villages and not in Noida, Gurgaon and Mumbai.”

The Congress’s district presidents, chief ministers, leaders of legislature parties, state ministers and the state functionary in charge of the job scheme’s implementation will share their experiences with Sonia and the Prime Minister.

To underline the convention’s “grassroots” orientation, the party has also summoned its zilla panchayat chiefs, their assistants and other representatives from the 200 pilot districts where the scheme is being implemented in the first phase.

“The function will not be politicised,” said party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi. He explained that although the participants will be asked for detailed feedback on implementation in the non-Congress states — where 60 per cent of the selected districts fall — they will not be encouraged to level charges against individuals or try to score political points.

The brief given to them covers four points: how many jobs have been listed in each pilot district, how many job cards have been issued, what the nature of the work (irrigation, PWD, forests and the like) is, and whether the statutory wage is being paid.

Among the early complaints the party has received from non-Congress states are:

In Uttar Pradesh, funds meant for the scheme have been diverted to other programmes, such as food-for-work, by local functionaries of the ruling Samajwadi Party. “The district authorities refuse to listen to members of other parties,” a Congress MLA from eastern Uttar Pradesh alleged.

In Chhattisgarh, the statutory daily wage is Rs 60 but only a little over Rs 40 is being paid.

In Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh, there has been a “record” number of job takers but in neighbouring Karnataka, ruled by the BJP-Janata Dal (Secular), the scheme hasn’t taken off.
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