Fewer people participated in MGNREGA during the first six months of this financial year (April-September) compared to the same period last year, a recent analysis of the scheme's performance by LibTech showed.
The negative balance is largely on account of pending material cost for the work done under the programme during the year and even earlier.
'...Market-linked debentures, high-value insurance, exemptions from capital gains by investment in real estate, etc.' 'So, there are a number of measures directed at collecting a fair share from higher income individuals.'
The implication of a slowdown in the financial services sector are very different (eg, likely to affect fewer people directly, and even that affecting those at the top of the income distribution) from that of a slowdown in construction, one of the most employment intensive sectors in the Indian economy (that will affect aggregate demand much more).'
MGNREGA scheme: A significant Rs 17,370.58 crore has been carried forward over to the next financial year as unpaid dues as demand for work continued unabated for the scheme in rural areas.
The beneficiaries of the second set of announcements are expected to be micro, small, and medium enterprises, farmers, women, poor, migrant workers, and other marginalised sections of the society, reports Arup Roychoudhury.
Few readers will remember the socialist utopia of Indira Gandhi when food queues were the norm even for the middle class and tankers supplied water at odd hours of the night twice a week. Is that what you are trying to return us to, dear Congress, asks Jaideep Prabhu