Former Union Minister and Congress leader Eknathrao alias 'Balasaheb' Vikhe Patil passed away at his residence in Loni village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra on Friday evening following prolonged illness, his family said. He was 84.
The Maharashtra government has become the owner of iconic Air India building with the Union government approving transfer of the asset on Thursday. The Maharashtra government bought the Air India building at Nariman Point in Mumbai for Rs 1,601 crore. "GoI has approved transfer of Air India building, Mumbai of AI Assets Holding Company Ltd (AIAHL) to Government of Maharashtra (GoM) at consideration of Rs.1601 cr. GoM has agreed to waive dues of Rs. 298.42 cr, which would have been otherwise payable by AIAHL to GoM for this transaction," DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said in a post on X.
The government will provide Rs 11.11 lakh crore for capital expenditure for 2024-25 and introduce viability gap funding to spur private investment in infrastructure, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday. Presenting the Union Budget for FY2024-25, she said that the government will endeavour to maintain strong fiscal support for infrastructure over the next five years, in conjunction with imperatives of other priorities and fiscal consolidation.
In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday underlined the need for collaboration between the Centre and states to take up the next-generation reforms covering land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. As far as revenue share goes, the government has projected to give about 32.5 per cent of central taxes to states during FY25, against the 15th Finance Commission's recommendation of 41 per cent, according to the Union Budget estimate.
The statistics (compiled till May), presented and analysed by the Performance Review Committee of the ministry last week, show that states run by UPA governments have not made much advance in implementing its signature rural development schemes.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh hit out at Opposition-backed candidate P A Sangma and one of his key backers Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for playing the tribal card in the Presidential polls.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has created a political buzz with his remark that ''election is not a beauty contest'' while commenting on reports on the pitching of Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi for the 2014 general elections by their respective parties.
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.
The direct cash transfer scheme is not a "jaadu ki chhadi" (magic wand) to reform a "broken down" delivery system and problems are there in its implementation, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Sunday.
The Centre has expressed displeasure over improper implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in some states, pointing to inadequacies like failure to put in place monitoring, auditing and accountability mechanisms.
The mortal remains of Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Rural Development Minister Gopinath Munde, who died in a road accident in Delhi, were flown to Mumbai on Tuesday evening.
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.
For Yogi Adityanath the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy.
Instructions from the Union rural development ministry to the state officials on the WhatsApp group show that the chat was also used as an off-record avenue for the Union government to pass instructions, which it could not have done through formal channels, keeping the law in mind.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday made a strong pitch for roping in organisations like those run by Catholic Church to bring development in Maoist-hit areas but asked them to respect the 'Lakshman Rekha' and not engage in "religious mobilisation".
In a dramatic development, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Minister C P Yogeeshwara on Wednesday quit his party and joined the Congress, which is now expected to field him in the November 13 assembly bypolls from Channapatna.
Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has said states would not be allowed to ignore the findings of the social audits notified recently by his ministry on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced income tax relief for the middle class, a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay for job creation schemes over the next five years and a spending splurge for states run by her party's new coalition partners as she unveiled the Modi 3.0 government's first budget after the general elections.
The Budget emphasises on capacity building and empowerment of marginalised sections of society including farmers.
Chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.
The Supreme Court, by a majority view of 3:2, upheld the validity of the 103rd Constitution amendment providing 10 per cent reservation to people belonging to economically weaker sections (EWS) in admissions and government jobs.
Estimates show more than half of the country's rural population still defecates in the open, along roadsides, railway tracks and fields.
A freebie once granted can hardly be discontinued. All that can happen is to substitute it with a bigger freebie, notes A K Bhattacharya.
In a letter to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has outlined his concerns about the faulty implementation of the Indira Awaas Yojana in the state.
"We will not make payment if the beneficiary does not have a bank account. We have opened 1.45 crore accounts so far. We will cover 3.37 crore beneficiaries very soon," Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told PTI on Monday. The minister, who was speaking after inaugurating the National Consultation on NREGA, said the move would help check any irregularity in implementation of the programme.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has worked for weeks to prepare speeches and the Congress' Jaipur Declaration. "This is the Obama moment of the Congress, where the party is re-energised with the rise of young leadership," he said.
He said the truth will come out from the investigation and asked the opposition Congress, which is demanding Eshwarappa's arrest, not to become investigators, prosecutors and judges themselves.
With the recent strain with ally Trinamool Congress fresh in mind, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday said the Congress would respect "coalition dharma" in West Bengal, but would continue its 'legitimate' political activities without hurting any party.
Lalit Modi's attempt to regain control of the Rajasthan Cricket Association failed for the second time in six months after the BCCI strongman lost an acrimonious election for the president's post to Union Minister CP Joshi in Jaipur on Monday.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said it was not possible to cancel all the coal block allocations but asserted that no one, even if a minister or a senior official, would be spared if found involved in the coal scam.
Amid the controversy raging over the definition of poverty, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday claimed that they have resolved the issue.
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has hit out at Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh for calling the former a 'super chief minister'.
Speaking to Business Standard about the Land Acquisition Bill recently cleared by the Cabinet, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said though the farmers' protests in Uttar Pradesh provided the impetus, the Bill was as much a political response to a poll problem as a legal response to a social issue.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies on Tuesday welcomed the Union Budget and said it focussed on youth, farmers, women, and has 'substantial allocations' for Maharashtra, but the opposition slammed the annual financial statement, claiming it neglected the western state and only seeks to please the saffron outfit's partners in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
According to sources, the GoM has accepted the rural development ministry's demand to stick to the 70:30 formula for land acquisition for industry, after rejecting suggestions of a parliamentary panel, Left parties and some state governments. This means that a state can acquire only up to 30 per cent of the total land required for a project with the remaining being acquired by the private party concerned.
The ministry of minority affairs informed the Lok Sabha that in 2022-2023, it had been allotted Rs 5,020.5 crore (Rs 50.20 billion); in the Revised Estimates, it had got Rs 2,612.66 crore (Rs 26.12 billion); and had spent, until the end of March this year, Rs 712.5 crore (Rs 7,12 billion).
This is the fourth such recruitment drive proposed to be undertaken by the Narendra Modi government which had in 2018 initiated lateral entry.
Union Rural development Minister Jairam Ramesh is burning the midnight oil to bring the Land Acquisition and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill 2011 before the Cabinet on Monday so that it can be cleared and then introduced in Parliament before the Monsoon Session ends on September 8.
Maharashtra government on Wednesday decided to acquire the iconic Air India building at Nariman Point in Mumbai for Rs 1,601 crore. The decision was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet in Mumbai. The meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, also decided to waive off around Rs 250 crore unrealised income and interest on the property, an official said.
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