India's post-pandemic recovery appears to be shaping up like the letter K, widening the inequality among states. The last part of the series captures the rising rural distress, as seen through the prism of MGNREGS demand. The pandemic appears to have exacerbated rural distress in the poorest states.
The Rural Development Ministry has been allocated Rs 1.88 lakh crore in the Union Budget for 2025-26, around 5.75 per cent more than the allocation in the previous budget.
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We need real laws to protect whistle-blowers, and even more than that real action should be taken against perpetrators, says Sandip Sukhtankar.
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.
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.
The Centre has allocated Rs 73,000 crore for the rural jobs guarantee programme for 2022-23.
The scheme guarantees 100 days work per household in a year and had been providing a major chunk by June each year.
Loss of confirmed orders, increase in wages and labour shortage were blamed on the scheme in a survey of 100 companies from diverse sectors.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Non-flagship programmes to get a mere 5% hike in allocation
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Sources in the Rural Development Ministry said the actual expenditure incurred in 2020-21 will be higher than the allocated funds and it will at least be at par with this year's total estimated expenditure of MGNREGS.
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.
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.
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.
Under attack from opposition parties and activists, the Bihar government has ordered the Crime Branch to probe the murder of RTI activist Ram Kumar Thakur, a police official said.
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.
Four Members of Legislative Assembly, a Member of Parliament and over 100 village heads were on Friday detained ahead of their march to Rajasthan assembly demanding abolition of contractual system and social auditing in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, police said.
With UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi pushing for increased wages for labourers, the government on Thursday came out with a new structure for payment of wages under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that will be linked to inflation.
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.
The project titled 'Thanal' launched by Edavaka Gram Panchayat with MGNREGS help, has provided less strenuous jobs for 600 senior citizens, including 250 tribals and 10 physically challenged in 15 nursery units, Panchayat President, Justine Baby has said.
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