Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi File pictureThe Congress on Monday asked the Narendra Modi government to free the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from the fetters of budgetary limits to ensure that whoever seeks work under the scheme gets it. Arguing that the economic distress deepened by the pandemic and the lockdown necessitates such a step, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said: “Having proved most efficacious in practical alleviation on the ground, MGNREGA need not have a budgetary limit at least for six to eight months. Congress president Sonia Gandhi wrote an article in the Indian Express on Monday, saying: “A government that sought to denigrate MGNREGA, undermine it, has come to reluctantly rely on it. In the years since, the Modi government tried its best to throttle MGNREGA, hollowing it out and undermining it. It has proved its worth in the years it has been in existence, even enduring six years of a hostile government.”

Source: The Telegraph June 08, 2020 23:25 UTC