Acute shortage of labour and migration towards social schemes like Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), a large number of construction projects are lagging behind their completion schedules.
Member of Parliament can now allocate funds from their local area development scheme kitty for rural employment guarantee programmes. The move that comes just ahead of Budget is aimed at providing the much-needed fiscal cushion to operate the UPA's most ambitious social security programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).
The government's ambitious rural employment project MGNREGA has come under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court which today said money was not reaching real beneficiaries and in many cases going to wrong hands.
Non-flagship programmes to get a mere 5% hike in allocation
There are a number of problems that plague the implementation of MGNREGA, including corruption, administrative paralysis and other hardy perennials. Massive amounts of funds on this scheme remained unspent in 2010-11 and 2011-12.
On October 1, Union Cabinet cleared the proposal of the rural development ministry for naming National Rural Employment Guarantee Act after Mahatma Gandhi.
Pawar said the Union Cabinet has already decided last week to reschedule crop loans of farmers in the affected drought areas with reduced interest rate of 7 per cent.
Rejecting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's charge that his demand for Central Bureau of Investigation probe into Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act implementation was "politically motivated", Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday said he would not hesitate to recommend similar investigation even in Congress-ruled states.
Just over 5 crore (50 million) households received employment in works like water conservation and water harvesting, drought proofing, irrigation canals and renovation of traditional water canals, the MNREGA annual report, tabled by the Rural Development ministry in Parliament, said.
The Bihar government has sacked 110 officials of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme from service for corruption.
'MGNREGA Sameeksha' is an anthology of all major research studies on performance of the programme that were published in academic journals or the stand-alone reports, but excluding the newspaper and magazine articles and opinion pieces, says Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh in his forward to the volume.
A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Ministry and UIDAI in the presence of Rural Development Minister C P Joshi and UIDAI chairperson Nandan Nilekani for this.
The National Level Monitors have pointed out grave irregularities in the NREGA scheme in Uttar Pradesh.
Bihar government has decided to use high-tech GPS enabled Android phones to monitor progress of the rural jobs scheme and keep a watch on the officials involved in the implementation of the scheme.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar directed the CBI to conduct the probe on the basis of the survey reports provided by the petitioner, CAG report and the National Institute of Rural Development.
The Union rural development ministry has recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into two separate cases of murder related to corruption and wage demands in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Jharkhand.
The Centre has allocated Rs 73,000 crore for the rural jobs guarantee programme for 2022-23.
The supplementary demands for grants include a gross additional spending of over Rs 2 lakh crore, which would be matched by savings of over Rs 1.21 lakh crore.
With the threat of a failed monsoon and an impending drought, the need for public works and for greater numbers of workers will arise in many states, says Aruna Roy
China has sought information on India's poverty reduction programmes, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, to beef up its own strategy.
Patil in her address to both Houses of Parliament said higher public spending on programmes of rural development has successfully raised incomes in those areas.
Accusing Jairam of making a mountain out of a molehill, she has sought to draw the prime minister's attention to the minister's bid to generalise some information.
Loss of confirmed orders, increase in wages and labour shortage were blamed on the scheme in a survey of 100 companies from diverse sectors.
The scheme guarantees 100 days work per household in a year and had been providing a major chunk by June each year.
Bihar Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra on Monday ordered an inquiry into the allegations that nearly 73 per cent of the funds allotted for implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 38 districts of Bihar, between 2006 and 2012, have been embezzled by authorities.
Official death toll due to the cyclonic storm has been pegged at 21, nearly 12 million people affected.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee strongly retorted as 'distasteful' the taunt by Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh while releasing the fourth installment of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act funds to her state that 'this reflects how sensitive the so-called 'brain-dead government in Delhi' is to the needs of the people of West Bengal'.
With Karnataka facing acute scarcity of drinking water and fodder due to deficient monsoon rains, new Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar on Tuesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and sought an immediate Central assistance of Rs 2,000 crore to tackle the situation.
The SR Abhiyan meeting held in Jaipur, Rajasthan to mark the completion of seven years of MGNREGA decided that both pensions and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act would be made electoral issues and political parties would be asked to take a stand before canvassing during the upcoming state and national elections.
A man killed during a recent anti-Naxal operation in Madhya Pradesh's Mandla district was a tribal and not a Maoist, an official said on Saturday. The opposition Congress claimed he was innocent and demanded a high-level probe and a judicial inquiry into the incident.
The quantum of irregularities can be gauged from the fact that during 11 months of last fiscal, Union Rural Development Ministry received 351 complaints of alleged embezzlement of funds in the NREGA.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has warned the officers of stern action if irregularities were detected in implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
Presenting the Union Budget for the year 2012-13, the Finance Minister informed the Lower House of Parliament that the enrolments into the other system have already crossed 20 crore (200 million) and the Aadhaar numbers generated upto date has crossed 14 crore (140 million).
It is true that, at 119 crore person-days, the employment created this year by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), the government's flagship programme, is tiny, a fraction of one percentage point of the total employment in the country.
Union Minister of State for Communications and Technology Sachin Pilot on Friday charged the National Democratic Alliance government in Bihar with misuse of central funds worth over Rs 11 crore under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and other flagship programmes for the poor.
A proposal to give foodgrains instead of cash to agriculture workers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has "not received" any positive response, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told Rajya Sabha.
The Delhi-based Centre for Environment and Food Security has filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking a thorough probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scam in Bihar.
The Prime Minister also expressed concern over problems in implementation of MNREGA in Naxal-affected areas.
The pilot project would begin from South 24 Parganas district and be gradually extended to all other 18 districts of the state, Panchayat and Rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee said.
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