NRGEA is a crown jewel of a Government sponsored poverty alleviation programme if properly implemented could generate employment in rural India. improving their economic status and bring sustainable livelihood assets. Coupled with RTI Act, this singular act of UPA Government, a brain child of a foreign woman Sonia Gandhi has endeared the party to the masses and made a hero out of Dr.Man Mohan Singh who has no direct link to the conception nor implementation of this momentous program empowering millions of deprived sections of our population. This requires a lot of investment which the government is lacking.

The right to food act which mandates provision of a certain quantity of rice,wheat to ever BPL family at subsidised prices also requires a lot of investment. People have been complaining that this waters down the benefits accrued to poor familieis under Antyodhaya scheme and also head count varies between what Planning Commission has enumerated and various state governments have enumerated. To extend the scheme to a larger population requiresenormous sums of money beyond the financial wherewithal of this government especially when economists have been warning against the increasing subsidy bill. The ballooning fiscal deficit which has to be met through increased borrowings which will necessarily curtail funds available to private sector and increase interest costs also cuts down the options before thegovernment. Monetisation of the deficit could be a bright idea but no one seems to be in favor of it.

It is the bounden duty of a peoples' government to eliminate the disparities in income distribution through thoughtful and innovative job guarantee schemes likeNRGEA which are not mere subsidies so long as they help to create a sustainable livelihood for rural population,the basic intent of this humane program.When such schemes need enormous sums of resources to be allocated, why is that we need to spent millions of rupees on providing unique identification no to every citizen to fight terror? How long we will continue to ape United States of America. The love of our PM and our Dy ChairmanPlanning Commission to anything American is well known.But let us not fall prey to such hallucinations. There should be a national movement to impress upon UPAGovernment to target on governance and livelihood issues rathern on cosmetic economic reforms to please the west.