NAC to do reality check on flagship schemes

NEW DELHI: The new National Advisory Council (NAC), which had its first meeting here on Thursday, decided to evaluate implementation of flagship programmes of UPA I.

It also decided to have food security bill, communal violence bill and tribal development as priorities apart from monitoring better implementation of existing social sector schemes.

Talking to ET shortly after the meeting, NAC member Anu Aga described the meeting as ‘fruitful’. The issue of food security and natural resource management, land rights and land reforms, right to health and right to education, urban poverty, rural regeneration, the northeast and the plight of internally displaced people came up at the meeting.

Several members, especially those who were in NAC I like former bureaucrat N C Saxena, social activist Aruna Roy and development economist A K Shivakumar, felt that the government’s programmes needed to be implemented far better.
NREGA, for instance, Mr Shivakumar told ET, is hit due to payment delays and near paralysis of social audits.

NAC members later met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, where he is learnt to have stressed upon the need to build administrative capabilities to ensure social sector programmes were executed better.

He reminded NAC that the best way to tackle poverty was through growth, cautioned them about the need for fiscal prudence apart from agreeing with them that performance of social programmes needed to be tracked better.

Mr Shivakumar said it appeared that the government knew that it has lost momentum and that the social agenda had to be pushed. He was optimistic that there will be a lot of momentum in the next year or so.

NAC is expected to meet July 1, when members will make a presentation on the Food Security Bill. Mr Shivakumar said several members felt the bill should be expanded into a food and nutrition security bill.

Unlike NAC I, its second avatar does not have common minimum programme to monitor. It will partly take its cues from the President’s address to Parliament last year apart from offering policy inputs and legislative suggestions to the PM.

NAC II could face opposition as it monitors implementation of policies. As Mr Saxena told ET last week: “Our work was easier last time. The issues we had to work on had already been decided. All we had to do was get those commitments fleshed out. This time, there will be greater hostility. We will have to tread carefully.”