Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday urged the Centre to implement the government’s rural employment guarantee scheme and his party’s ‘Nyuntam Aay Yojana’ (NYAY) as an economic measure for the poor in urban and rural areas of the country amid the ongoing crisis triggered by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.
Gandhi talked about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) as well as NYAY, a minimum income guarantee scheme proposed by the Congress party as a promise ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year.
“The implementation of schemes like MGNREGA for the victims of unemployment in cities and NYAY for the poor people across the country is necessary. It will also be very beneficial for the economy,” Gandhi tweet translated from Hindi read.
The former Congress president also attached a graph showing the growth in the demand for jobs under MGNREGA from May 2013 to the corresponding month this year.
“Will the suit-boot-robbery government understand the pain of the poor?” he asked.
The Congress’ NYAY scheme promises poor households Rs 72,000 a year, no taxes will be raised and the middle class won’t have to bear the brunt of funding this scheme.
Gandhi had promised then that 20% of the poorest families in the country would get Rs 72,000 each annually under the scheme if the party win the parliamentary elections. The scheme was envisaged to cover five crore families and benefit nearly 25 crore people and each family would earn at least Rs 12,000 every month. The total estimated expenditures of the scheme were around Rs 3.5 lakh crore.
The Congress party had recommended the implementation of its NYAY scheme in March as well after Prime Minister announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
