New Delhi: Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi along with other young Members of Parliament including Jyothiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, Milind Deora and Sandeep Dikshit met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today to discuss measures for implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Informing to the media in the national capital Rahul said that they had suggested a centralized monitoring mechanism and better tie-ups between states for effective implementation of the scheme.

Referring to the recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report that was critical of the programme, Gandhi said that a programme like NREGA should not be lambasted as a whole as some states have performed well in delivering the benefits.

The CAG report, which had studied the performance of NREGA in 68 districts in 26 states had pointed out irregularities like diversion of funds and mention of work which does not exist.

NREGA was started in February, 2006 in about 200 selected districts across the country guaranteeing 100 days of manual work employment in a year to a member of each poor family in rural areas. The programme was subsequently extended to 330 districts in the country at the behest of Rahul Gandhi. The scheme will be extended to all districts from 1st April, 2008.