Parliament tonight approved the historic Bill for providing employment guarantee to all rural households in the country with the Rajya Sabha passing the legislation by a voice vote. | |
| The ambitious Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, which was passed yesterday by the Lok Sabha, seeks to ensure at least 100 days wage employment to every rural household in a year in 200 districts to start with. |
| |
| The scheme would be extended to all the 600 districts in the country in the next five years, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said, winding up the marathon debate on the legislation. |
| |
| Earlier, intervening in the discussion on the Bill, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a strong case for rationalisation of subsidies and improving investment climate and said it was essential to maintain seven to eight per cent growth to finance the employment guarantee scheme and make it effective. |
| |
| Sounding alarm bells on the high combined fiscal deficit of the Centre and states, the Prime Minister minced no words on the need to push up the economic reforms by cutting unwanted subsidies and improving the health of state electricity boards and oil navratnas. |
| |
| "The combined fiscal deficit of the Centre and states at 10 per cent of the GDP was one of the highest in the world. All those concerned with governance should pool their experience to ensure that the fiscal health of both the Centre and state is not jeopardised," the Prime Minister said. |
| |
| India's electricity industry was losing Rs 30,000 crore and these losses came in the way of taking electricity to rural and needy people, Singh said adding it was for the first time that some of our navratana oil PSUs had started making cash losses. |
| |
| If the oil firms were continued to be burdened they would not be able to play their role in the national economy, he said. "Let me say there can be a difference of opinion over the size of fiscal deficit. But no country in the world that I know of has got rich merely by spending its way to prosperity," he said. |
| |
| "Good expenditure has a role. I think good expenditure can relieve social distress. It can also stimulate investment activity," he said adding if we had to implement various programmes of rural regeneration, education, healthcare and social assistance then public finance of central and state governments would have to be in proper shape. |
| |
|
| |
