Awaas Yojana set to shed Indira Gandhi’s name, to be called be called National Gramin Awaas Mission

NEW DELHI: Indira Gandhi's name is set to be removed from the popular rural housing programme that provides subsidies to the poor to have a house of their own, in a move which will symbolize the regime change.

The rural development ministry is looking to turn Indira Awaas Yojana, a scheme, into a "mission" with increased budget and with an important design innovation which mandates toilets to be part of the housing units constructed under the scheme.

If the "mission mode" is approved, Indira Awaas Yojana would be called "National Gramin Awaas Mission".

The first step towards erasing Congress's imprint on the scheme has come in the rural development ministry's "discussion paper" that has the prospective title in place of IAY.

The proposed name — National Gramin Awaas Mission — is set to cause heartburn in the Congress camp because Indira remains the topmost party icon and her name figures more than any other leader's in government nomenclature, be it a place or scheme. Her son Rajiv and father Jawaharlal Nehru are others after whom schemes and venues are named, a source of standing criticism of Congress.

Though Congress will not like the scrapping of Indira's name, the rural development ministry has amplified its intent by public circulation of the discussion paper with a title shorn of the Congress imprimatur.

For Congress, just humiliated in the Lok Sabha elections, this may be a red rag from PM Narendra Modi who does not miss an opportunity to needle the rival by proclaiming "Congress-mukt Bharat" as his political objective, asserting that he wants to eliminate the premier party from the political landscape.

Removing the Congress leader's name from the rural housing scheme is set to be seen from the political prism.

More may be in the offing. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission has just expired and the Centre is likely to unfurl its new avatar without the name of the country's first PM.

If Congress has for years ignored the criticism of its method, it is because it views strategic significance in embedding the Nehru-Gandhi family in welfare schemes. With its positioning as a pro-poor party, the party has effectively used the names to etch its authorship of major schemes in the minds of beneficiaries.

The fear of renewed sniping from rivals made Congress prefix the name of Mahatma Gandhi to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act when it was renamed. But here too, Congress has a claim on the father of the nation ahead of the rivals.