In a draft proposal, the ministry of rural development has also sought to engage non-government organisations in the ambitious programme by designating them as Lok Sewaks, who would in turn appoint and guide Lok Karmis in their territorial jurisdiction, which would not be more than four blocks in a district.
Extending the job guarantee programme much beyond digging ponds and building roads, work allotted under NREGA may cover garmenting giving employment to lakhs of people, Textile Secretary Rita Menon has said.
Ministry of rural development has asked chief secretaries of the states to inform about the remedial measures taken by them to ensure timely payment of wages to NREGA workers, an official said.
Each 'adarsh village' should have piped drinking water, connectivity to the main road, electricity supply to all households, library, telecom and broadband connectivity including CCTVs in public areas. Emphasis will also be on e-governance, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
Its workers are on their toes to win over the voters once again, with idea of 'Amrit Kaal'.
In its report to the rural development ministry, the NLM has also noted that 60 per cent of the districts have 'unsatisfactory or irrelevant' choice of works under the Act and its technical supervision was also absent.
The finance ministry has called a meeting of the State-Level Bankers Committee in New Delhi on Tuesday, which will be attended by officials from scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks, cooperatives, Reserve Bank of India, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, the Centre as well as states. The meeting will be presided over by financial services department secretary Arun Ramanathan.
Members protest, rural ministry assures it will not be so hereafter.
About 150 years ago, in British India, big farmers in the western region of Maharashtra agitated over unfair lending practices and demanded a more fair and inclusive financing structure. People say this is where the seeds of the cooperative movement, now omnipresent in the country, were sown. Today, more than 800,000 cooperative societies thrive in India, with 300 million members, a number close to the population of the United States. Despite a reach this deep--grass roots as they call it--cooperatives do not occupy a lion's share in the Indian economy.
While the rural development ministry claims high success rate in the previous two years under its flagship Swarnajayati Gram Swarozgar Yojana, a total of 3,24,526 eligible self-help groups are still awaiting financial assistance under the programme.
Almost a year after he was forced to resign in the aftermath of the terror attack on Mumbai, senior Nationalist Congress Party leader R R Patil is back in the saddle as Maharashtra home minister. NCP chief Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar will handle the prestigious Power portfolio, in addition to the Water Resources Ministry he handled earlier. NCP leader Jayant Patil, who was home minister in the outgoing government, will now handle the Rural Development Ministry.
C P Joshi, India's Rural Development Minister, on Tuesday claimed that a Bill to provide for acquisition of land for industrial projects and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) has been cleared by the Cabinet and the timing of its introduction in Parliament will be decided by the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry.
Norms flouted, non-BPL families cornered grants, say rural development ministry's reports.
Stepping up pressure over their demand for change in the leadership in Karnataka, seven Ministers on Friday met former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and discussed the political situation amid reports that they planned to quit the Bharatiya Janata Party ministry.
The controversial Land Acquisition Bill was on Thursday cleared by the Union Cabinet, making mandatory the consent of 80 per cent of people whose land is taken for private projects.
After UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had intervened and asked government to take consent from 80 per cent land owner for purchase of land.
S S Meenakshisundram on Wednesday took charge as secretary in the ministry of divestment.\n\n
Centre is to allocate Rs 1,000 crore for Tamil Nadu from the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana to lay roads in interiors of more than 1,000 kms connecting villages to main towns.
government approved on Thursday expansion of community radio stations by non-profit organisations after ensuring security clearances from the defence and home ministries.
A day after India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet of 45 ministers, the analysis has begun. Of the 44 ministers examined, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms reveals that 13 of Modi's men have criminal charges registered against them.
The state governments will be allowed to acquire a maximum of 10 per cent of the total land area allotted for a special economic zone for purposes of contiguity, according to a top source in the rural development ministry.
The recent blacklisting of 600 NGOs by the Union rural development ministry was meant to stem the rot in the functioning of its autonomous body called Council for Advancement of People's Action And Rural Technology or Capart.
The MHA order says the cancelled NGOs did not submit to the ministry details of amount of foreign contribution they received
Singh was widely regarded as an expert in the rural and agricultural landscape of the country and is credited with the conceptualisation and implementation of the NREGA (National Rural Guarantee Employment) Act.
The socio-economic and caste census 2011 painted a grim picture of rural India, indicating that one out of three families living in villages is landless and depends on manual labour for livelihood.
For the past one week, Modi has been holding in-person meetings with Union ministers apparently to take stock of the work done by the government in the last two years and to discuss various issues.
India will issue a new decree this week for land purchases that has stirred disquiet across the country
The expansion was the first by Sarma since he assumed chief ministership of the state about 13 months ago.
The caste and Below Poverty Line census has been suspended in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh by Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, though it goes on nonstop in Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur also have simultaneous elections.
The high-level expert group led by former Reserve Bank of India governor C Rangarajan to formulate a jobs plan for Jammu and Kashmir is likely to meet on Friday in New Delhi. The committee was formed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as part of the Centre's efforts to end the ongoing cycle of violence there. The committee will initially hold a few meetings with senior officials from various ministries including home, agriculture, external affairs.
'I have been dropped all of a sudden and I don't even know what my fault is,' says Shobha Karandlaje, who was dropped from the Karnataka cabinet following the battle between Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and the Reddy brothers from Bellary.
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
As indicated by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the UPA government has already initiated process to make higher allocation in social sector.
Data captured in central government records have a lag.
Officials said the broad objective of the study is to evaluate the extent to which the programme has achieved its aim and find out the factors responsible for its progress and suggest remedial measures needed to overcome the difficulties.
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