Between April and September 2014, the central govt released Rs 13,618 cr to states, against Rs 24,676 cr in the same period last year.
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.
Besides ordering departmental inquiry against two officers who were district magistrates of Chitrakoot and Sultanpur, the state government suspended two senior officers who were then posted as chief development officers of Mahoba and Chitrakoot districts.
This step has been taken by the DM after all his efforts to spur the staff failed and the district continued to be placed among the least performing districts of the state in implementation of the scheme, the ADM added.
To make the implementation of its flagship programme for rural job guarantee more transparent, the Union government plans to constitute a group of eminent persons for its independent evaluation and monitoring.
Sonia hit out at the BJP, saying the ruling party's "divisive agenda" has become a regular feature of political discourse in all states and that history is being "mischievously distorted" to add fuel to its agenda.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, flagship rural development programme of the United Progressive Alliance government, was launched in February 2006 in 200 districts. It was later expanded to another 130 districts in 2007-08 and eventually extended to cover all the 593 districts.
It was under his stewardship of the Union Rural Development Ministry that NREGA, the flagship rural livelihood scheme, was implemented.
The National Human Rights Commission report prepared for the second universal periodic review, a mechanism created by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006 for examining the universal coverage of human rights across the world, will come up for discussion in a meeting early next year.
Using banks to make NREGA payments has only added to corruption, says Anirban Kar.
Blaming parties which had ruled Uttar Pradesh in the last 20 years for its backwardness, Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the picture of the state would change in the next five years if the Congress comes to power. Addressing a public meeting on the last day of his tour, he alleged that while the Centre was sending funds for welfare programmes like MNREGA, they were not reaching the common people because of corruption.
According to the latest report from Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN), a voluntary effort started in March 2020 to mobilise relief for stranded migrant workers, almost 92 per cent workers, whom the group contacted between April 21 and May 31, had not received any money from their employer. This was after restrictions were imposed and work had stopped. The survey, which was conducted among 1,396 worker groups, adding up to 8,023 people that included 4,836 women and children, showed that 76 per cent of the workers had less than Rs 200 left with them.
'I would want people to have food on their tables and their wages to rise.' 'Will that happen or not is the question that we need to ask and answer.'
Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a worker is entitled to Rs 100 per day for minimum of 100 days in a year.
'The government will have to provide something for migrant workers or 'Farmers will still survive because they will eat what they produce.' 'What will the rest of the people do? What will happen to them?'omething else like that or else you will see some huge uprising or unrest.'
Last year, Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu won a national award for 100 per cent utilization of the NREGA funds.Former Nagapattinam District Collector M Jayaraman, recently received the award from Prime Minister Singh.M Jayaraman is now the district collector of Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu. In his interview with rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar, Jayaraman discusses the pros and cons of the NREGA programme.
In an advisory to the states, ministry of rural development has also asked them to take effective measures to ensure that rural households receive their 'due entitlement' under the Act in the districts facing drought.
The FMCG sector's demand growth will be powered by effective reduction in the personal taxes and increased allocation under NREGA, though hike in excise duty lead inflation is a cause for concern
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 centre pays only an insulting Rs 200 per pensioner each month at a tight-fisted 0.04 per cent of GDP, among the lowest in the world. Instead, as illustrated by Jean Drze, one option is for NYAY to provide individual rather than household entitlements to all pensioners of at least Rs 1200 per month.
The government is committed to provide Rs 100 a day as wages under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, said finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Union minister of state for commerce, Jairam Ramesh, said there was no proposal to fix the national minimum wage rate at Rs 60 per day under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
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).'
'Secularism does not mean appeasement of terrorists all the time. Secularism does not mean you have to appease anybody. Justice for all and appeasement for none. That is the role of a secular party.' "So that will remain?" '100 percent.' Taking time off from the first Lok Sabha election he has contested in his life, BJP leader Nitin Gadkari explains to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel what a Modi Sarkar will mean for India.
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.
Joseph Stiglitz says India should not bothered on inflation and instead focus on rapid growth.
India might be heading towards a "serious livelihood crisis" as the situation seems to be worse this time for the working class amid the COVID crisis and local restrictions by states already add up to something close to a nationwide lockdown, according to noted economist Jean Dreze. In an interview to PTI, he also said the government's target to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25 was never a "feasible target" and was just to pander to the "super-power ambitions" of the Indian elite. About the impact of the second wave of COVID on the Indian economy, the eminent economist said the situation today is not very different from what it was around this time last year as far as working people are concerned.
In a move to cut down wastage, duplication and leakages and enhance efficiency, the Prime Minister has given a major push to transfer individual benefits from the government directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries.
Direct cash transfers or food coupons should be used to provide services to the poor, says Farzana Afridi.
This includes an infrastructure push which may lead to the government spending more than its budgeted capital expenditure for 2020-21. There are also discussions on increasing the scope and quantum of direct cash transfers to the beneficiaries who need it the most.
Nearly 73 per cent of the funds allotted for the implantation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act in 38 districts of Bihar between 2006 and 2012 have been embezzled by authorities. Bihar spent a total amount of Rs 8,189 crore during 6 years on NREGA, according to an audit conducted by the Delhi-based Centre for Environment and Food Security.
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.
The job guarantee scheme is set to provide food grain as part of wages.
In his letter to Kumar, the veteran leader has made a series of suggestions including an amendment in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act, bringing Lord Buddha's begging bowl from Kabul and hoisting tricolor at Vaishali, the land of world's first Republic.
Bihar boy Sushil Kumar, who hit the Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) Kaun Banega Crorepati jackpot, was on Monday named by the Centre as the brand ambassador for its flagship rural job guarantee scheme MNREGA.
The Minimum Wages Act will be amended to enact a new centrally set minimum, in the wake of the National Advisory Council's suggestion on asymmetries in this regard between states on payments for work done on schemes under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
FMCG: Cut in excise duty on baby, clinical diapers, adult diapers and sanitary napkins.
Adoption of technology will lead to increase in employment opportunities.
In a bid to check discrepancies in the process of attendance and wage payment to NREGA beneficiaries using manual job cards, bio-metric cards are being introduced in Bihar under e-shakti project.
Even as the flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme continues to face problems at the implementation level, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, ignoring suggestions by Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia and other economists, has refused to bring any major change in the scheme.
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