Days after the young scion of the Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi, alleged that the national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) was not being implemented in drought-hit areas of Uttar Pradesh, the union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, admitted that the scheme faced corruption and had its shortcomings in implementation. The minister was replying to a debate on the working of the rural development initiated by Brinda Karat of the CPM today. He, however, added that it cannot be said that money was going down the drain despite the shortcomings in implementation of the scheme. There was need to remove corruption, he said while adding that criticism of the scheme by the left parties and the BJP was wrong. Funds are not a constraint, we are more concerned about curbing malpractices across the country, the minister said while adding that states have been slow in some cases. Funds will be provided the finance minister had made a provision of Rs 16,000 crore to cover all districts. He has promised more. Within a few months all payments to beneficiaries will be routed through banks or post offices, this will weed out any mal practice in not giving full wages. Rahul Gandhi's visit had led to a war of words with the BSP threatening to withdraw support from the UPA at the Centre. Today the minister admitted that the scheme was being hampered due to lack of awareness. Even government officials do not have complete knowledge about the scheme. Regarding the concerns raised by Brinda Karat, he rubbished her charge that an anti-rural lobby was working. Rolling out figures, the minister said by 2012, all villages of the country would have basic sanitation facilities like clean toilets and drinking water. Our target is to construct one crore toilets every year in order to achieve this target, he said. On opposition's demand for uniformity of wages paid under national rural employment guarantee Act (NREGA), Singh said the government would consider the proposal. Singh also informed the House that the government is also coming up with a national rehabilitation settlement policy. The proposal regarding this is currently pending with the parliamentary standing committee and a decision is expected by the next Parliament session, he said. On Karat's remarks that the number of landless poor had risen from 22 to 32 per cent in recent years, Singh said the Union Budget had kept aside a provision of Rs 1,000 crore under the Indira Aawas Yojana (IAY) for landless poor. Referring to the findings of the CAG report on rural development, Singh said the ministry had already asked the state governments to look at grassroot level corruption hampering the implementation of the scheme. An inquiry has been ordered in 200 districts. Initiating the debate the CPM had alleged it was following "pressure created by influential lobby' the government increased the timing of working hours under NREGS to nine hours, including the lunch break.