New Delhi: In the backdrop of complaints in the implementation of the flagship rural job guarantee scheme, the Rural Development Ministry has convened a high-level review meeting here on Thursday.

"Secretaries of the Rural Development Department in the states will meet here on January 17 to take stock of the pace of implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act," Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told reporters here today.

The meeting will be held amidst allegations of irregularities in the NREGA implementation with a draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reportedly pulling up the ministry for slipshod execution of the programme.

However, refuting the draft CAG report, Singh said "it is not at all correct. It is just a draft and not the final report."

Asserting that NREGA was a grand success in most of the 330 districts selected for implementation, he said employment was provided to 2.10 crores households across the country in the 2006-07 against a demand for 2.12 crores houses.

Rubbishing allegations that the scheme had failed to take off, he said 90.5 crore person days have been created during this period with women accounting for 40 per cent, Scheduled Tribes 36 per cent and Scheduled Castes 25 per cent.

Source : PTI