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 sum of Rs 11.73 crore (Rs 117.3 million) was found to be misappropriated in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme in Andhra Pradesh, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) has said.
More people opting for work under the scheme would aggravate the shortage of workers in farms.
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.
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.
To kick-start the work under MGNREGA after the lockdown is lifted, the government has already prepared plans and states have also submitted their work plans.
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).
The districts have provided 64 days of jobs under the 100-day job scheme as against the state average of 45 days.
"It may be a wild thought now. But the first Green Revolution came about as a result of very high water guzzling cropping systems from the irrigated regions of the country. But the NREGA holds the trigger for a second Green Revolution from the rain-fed areas, but using water conserving technologies and working with the smaller and poorer farmers while the first revolution came from the big farmers," Dr. Sharma said.
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.
"In the last five years, government has begun to listen. Not that they do anything."
The steady decline of economy recently made Chinese youth anxious.
The government is considering a proposal to expand the types of works under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to provide wider option to beneficiaries.
It can possibly happen only in Bihar. The names of rich including chartered accountant, government employees, shopkeeper of Public Distribution System and even dead have been allotted job cards and they have drawn money as wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in the state.
The climate for 'doing business' remains forbidding, taxtortion is still rife, corruption at state and district levels has increased, oil prices remain extortive with high taxation, and the continued red tape has kept the enterprise system as stifled as before, points out Debashis Basu.
India's unemployment rate surged to a one-year high of 8.3 per cent in August as employment sequentially fell by 2 million to 394.6 million, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). During July, the unemployment rate was at 6.8 per cent and the employment was 397 million, the CMIE data added. "The urban unemployment rate is usually higher at about 8 per cent than the rural unemployment rate, which is usually around 7 per cent.
Sources claimed that Singhal was "evasive" in her replies and hence was arrested.
The substantially increased economic dualism may exert lasting negative influences which could include a reduced potential for economic growth; the persistence of a very weak employment and poverty situation; rising social and political discord; and heightened vulnerability to geopolitical challenges, cautions Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
Here are the key highlights of the BJP's 'Sankalp Patra' for the 2024 parliamentary polls.
The Union government is on a social sector roll. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had indicated that the United Progressive Alliance government was going to make the social sector the centrepiece of the upcoming Budget. According to Dilip Ghosh, special secretary, Panchayat Raj department of West Bengal, the Centre has indicated that the demand for grants for these projects should be hiked at least 50 per cent more than the present allocation.
The scheme would check fake payments made under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and ensure that the officials don't fudge the workers' wages, state rural development department sources said. Launched from Dharhar village of Paliganj area in Naxalite-hit Jehanabad district recently, the 'E-Shakti' scheme promises to cover each worker with smart cards carrying details about duration of work, the wage earned, photograph and registration number of the beneficiary.
Singh Deo will, however, remain the minister for Health and Family Welfare, Medical Education, Twenty Point Implementation and Commercial Tax departments.
"It is not true that there is 30-40 per cent siphoning," rural development minister C P Joshi told the Rajya Sabha during Question Hour.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday launched the 'historic' National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme aimed at providing right to legal livelihood to the rural poor.
"The government is planning such a scheme (for urban poor)," minister of state for planning V Narayanasamy told reporters after assuming charge of his ministry in New Delhi on Wednesday. Under the NREGA scheme, which was launched in February 2006, the government provides 100 days of assured employment in a year to at least one person in a rural household.
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.
Purulia district in West Bengal, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had said, people are worse off than those in Orissa's poorest Kalahandi area, has since turned the corner.
The prime minister also said the government proposes to set up an ombudsman in each district for effective grievance redressal under NREGA.
Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Minister V Vasant Kumar on Tuesday said the daily wages paid to workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the state will be enhanced from May 1.
Elder Pharma employs about 3,300 people in India, with about 2,700 professionals in marketing and sales. This recruitment will help Elder Pharma to have one of the largest drug sales force in India, like market leaders such as Cipla, Ranbaxy, Piramal Healthcare and Lupin.
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.
TCS has got a special recognition for its initiative to the lift of one million people in the inner part of India, by reaching out to the educated among the backward community and training them as well as making them economically-active through employment, TCS' Singapore-based President Vish Iyer told PTI on Monday.
'It has been an ongoing process, talking to the relevant ministries about eliminating leakages and curbing non-core expenditure in various schemes.'
Jean Dreze, who is also member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, Ritika Khera and Anirban Kar - all from the Delhi School of Economics -- have pointed out that though bank payment of wages is seen as a magic solution to delayed payment and non-payment of wages under the Rs 25,000-crore (Rs 250-billion) scheme, making bank payments mandatory is a step taken without necessary precautions.
'I have serious doubts about the longevity of the NDA government and the longevity of the 18th Lok Sabha itself.'
'The opposition wants the country to run on the basis of Shariat but this cannot happen'
Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said the government has written letters to heads of IITs and IIMs and vice chancellors of universities seeking their cooperation and involvement in the scheme. He said the government has asked officials of these reputed institutes to visit villages for conducting technical and impact assessment studies besides lending their help in implementing the programme.
Talking to PTI Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said, "The two-day nationwide strike by the joint forum of central trade unions has begun this morning". About the impact of the agitation, she said that the entire coal belt (mining area) is affected in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. She also said that there is a good response in industrial areas of Assam, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The AITUC official noted that the banks and insurance sectors are affected all over India, while steel and oil sectors are also seeing partial impact due to the strike. Kaur said that she has got preliminary reports that markets are closed in Odisha.
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