Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers at Anti Essays

The UPA’s betrayal of the “aam admi” in Rural India becomes crystal clear when one looks past this smokescreen called “Bharat Nirmaan” to contrast the NREGA populism against the USO-F delinquency.
AV Birla Group’s Chief Economist and fellow IIT-B alumnus Ajit Ranade sets the tone on this with his observation while the NREGA as an idea was great he feels the Dream Economic Team of Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh, Chidambaram has let down the “Aam Admi“.
There were high expectations when they took over. They have not met the exacting standards. This also shows that there are other skills that go into a success story than mere ideas.
One of the most scathing indictments of the NREGA variety of populism came this week from the World Bank which described it as a barrier to economic development and poverty alleviation:
Various schemes of the Indian government like NREGA, watershed programmes and schemes for development of small and medium towns are acting as “policy barriers to internal mobility”, the bank said in its ‘World Development Report’ 2009.
The internal mobility, the report argued, is necessary as “lifting people out of poverty requires shifting populations from villages to cities”. The process of migration should be encouraged, the bank said.
“Negative attitudes held by (the) government and ignorance of the benefits of population mobility have caused migration to be overlooked as a force in economic development,” it said.
The World Bank’s observation on NREGA as a barrier to workforce Mobility is not unfounded. A good example is this story on Chansari Village in Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh.
Under the NREGA scheme, a water reservoir is being constructed for which 16 men from the village have been employed. The villagers are quite content with the income they are getting.
“We are working here for the last 20-25 days. This reservoir is for the benefit of the villagers. Whatever money the...