NYAY is note 'vapsi', may cost Rs 3.5 lakh crore: Cong

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave pain to the common man through demonetisation, Congress' minimum income guarantee initiative, NYAY, will ensure note 'vapasi', a senior AICC functionary said.

Investment banker-turned-politician Praveen Chakravarty, who heads the AICC's Data Analytics Department, told DH that the NYAY initiative will ensure re-monetisation of India's economy and re-start its growth engine.

Chakravarty, who co-authored the chapter on NYAY— Nyuntam Aay Yojana— for the Congress manifesto, said that according to the data collated by the Congress, the basic requirement of a family of five to have a decent living was Rs 12,000.

This figure was arrived at by a team of economists who studied various datasets regarding the poverty and income distribution among different groups.

“If Modi gave the country noteban, NYAY will be note vapsi (returning the currency) to the people,” he said adding that according to economists consulted by the Congress the annual outgo to implement the scheme would be in the range of Rs 3.5 lakh crore.

He said that the Centre and the state government spend Rs 60 lakh crore on various schemes and programmes ensuring an annual expenditure of Rs 3.5 lakh was “doable”.

Chakravarty said that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme rolled out by the UPA-I government had lifted 14-crore people out of poverty.

“The NYAY initiative will be the second and final assault on poverty through which we aim to lift 25 crore people out of poverty,” he said.

In the present circumstances, the poorest of the poor earn about Rs 6,000 per month and the Congress has made a promise to ensure that they earn Rs 12,000 per month, Chakravarty said.

Chakravarty said that the proposal was in the works for the last three to four months, and involved consultations among leaders, primarily the Congress president, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former finance minister P Chidambaram and a number of economists both within the country and abroad.