Cong tasks Union ministers from UP to monitor central schemes

Congress today tasked all its six Union ministers from Uttar Pradesh to review implementation of centrally-sponsored schemes in the crucial state in view of the general elections next year.

'During my recent tour to Uttar Pradesh, number of party workers complained about problems in implementation of the welfare schemes, mainly those sponsored by the central government. There was anger among them and they wanted Congress and the Centre to work out some mechanism to redress it,' AICC General Secretary Madhusudan Mistry told reporters.

'Hence all the six ministers belonging to Uttar Pradesh have been involved and given the responsibilities of certain districts where they will go and seek to address their grievances,' he said.

According to Mistry, the ministers will seek to address the issue by taking up the matter with the state and the central governments and will be submitting a report to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi once a month.

The ministers are expected to visit at least two districts in a month.

Each minister has been given 12 districts. This is different from the earlier mechanism under which the state was divided into zones and party leaders were asked to strengthen the Congress organisation.

Though Mistry said the work of six union ministers this time is confined to monitoring of the central monitoring schemes and see that these are effectively carried out, there is a likelihood that the ministers concerned may also be asked to give constituency feedback about candidates and party strength as elections near.

Union ministers Salman Khurshid, Beni Prasad Verma, Pradeep Jain Aditya, Jitin Prasada, R P N Singh and Sri Prakash Jaiswal have been given this responsibility.