On October 2, the government will roll out the comprehensive plan in 10 districts. The ministry has had a series of discussions with the National Institute of Rural Development, which is to be the nodal body for overseeing the convergence of all rural schemes.
Ramesh, a labourer in Toomda village near Bhopal, can't believe his luck. He earns Rs 81 a day, digging wells under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, the United Progressive Alliance's flagship social welfare scheme that started in 2006.
The government's plan to restructure Air India, the loss-making state-owned airline, includes a proposal to rework the troubled productivity-linked incentive scheme, which accounts for over 45 per cent of the company's Rs 3,000 crore wage bill.
Global demand for certified wood has prompted Indian companies to get their logging vetted by monitoring agencies.
Non-resident Indian businessman C Sivasankaran's Sterling Infotech group is in talks with the Seychelles government to lease an island for 99 years, on which it plans to build an integrated mega township and tourism project.
Civil aviation minister Praful Patel, who held this portfolio in the first government of the United Progressive Alliance, too, has so far followed a liberal open-sky policy, sharply increasing the number of seats offered to West Asian airlines on flights connecting India. According to internal figures available with airlines, the total number of seats offered to West Asian carriers rose from 2.5 million in 2004 to 7.5 million last year.
A wall in Vijaypura is an example of what a single positive example can do for a large programme like the National Rrural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Section 377, which banned gay relations, also used to be invoked to protect minors against sexual abuse
The conflict between development and environment should not cause unnecessary delays, says Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh.
Truck rentals are set to rise 6 to 12 per cent after diesel prices were raised by Rs 2 a litre on Thursday.
If the Indian Railways, therefore, wishes to implement its expenditure plans as outlined in the Interim Railway Budget, it has to look for alternative sources of funding. One option under study is to adopt the PPP route to implement new projects. Mamata Banerjee's first Railway Budget in the United Progressive Alliance government, therefore, may outline major PPP initiatives for several new projects, say railway officials.
This meant targets set for primary school admissions, assured income for every family and roads, water, housing and electricity. And yearly spending of over Rs 1,20,000 crore (Rs 1,200 billion), up from Rs 36,000 crore (Rs 360 billion) in the last year of the National Democratic Alliance government.
A district collector's experiment in Tamil Nadu is showing the way for more rural BPOs even in times of recession.
Sanskara Eye Care's model of charging fee from only 20 per cent of the patients is sufficient to make each hospital self-sustaining in three to five years. But is not the only source of its sustenance. In the US, children are donating their pocket money towards eye surgery in these hospitals. It is $30 for a surgery, says founder R V Ramani.
If there is one state where environmental issues spill over into active politics and can rewrite the destiny of political parties, it is Goa. And history threatens to repeat itself in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections for two seats, over a government ordinance concerning a Supreme Court order on the demolition of illegal structures built by hotels.
Rented housing and fixed rents, like it's in developed countries, could be one way to ensure that everyone in cities has a roof over his head.
He asked the CMs to give priority to income-generating schemes like housing and tone up implementation of ongoing programmes to enable them to spend the originally allocated funds and the additional allocation of Rs 20,000 crore. He referred specifically to the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, National Urban Renewal Mission, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Indira Awas Yojana, Acceleration Irrigation Benefit Programme and National Social Assistance Programme.
Telemedicine sure helps private enterprise. If it also helps the cause of health care, then why not?
The ambitious plans of another charity of the Satyam founder, the Health Management Research Institute, in partnership with the Andhra Pradesh government, are under scrutiny.
Despite its success, EMRI is as much under a cloud today as its founder Ramalinga Raju, with a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court questioning the way he got 12 state governments to implement it and reimburse 95 per cent of its expenses. The key issue is that the states entrusted Rs 18 billion annually (if 10,000 vans are to run in all the states by next year) to a private company without going through a transparent selection procedure.
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