-Livemint.com As a part of the relief measures, while the PDS system could reach a vast majority of people both in rural and urban areas, the system has failed to identify the affected informally employed labour force in largely urban areas. This makes a case for introducing an urban replica of MGNREGA With laudable measures like the increased allocation in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the Pradhan Mantri...
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Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »11 measures, but most in the works for a few years, part of Modi govt Budgets -Harikishan Sharma
-The Indian Express Out of the 11 announcements, three concern governance and administrative reforms, including amendment of the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955, and agriculture marketing reforms through a Central law. New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Friday announced 11 measures for the agriculture sector as part of the third trench of the government’s Rs 20 lakh crore Covid-19 relief package. However, most of these measures are either in place already...
More »Most small farmers outside formal credit system. Sitharaman’s announcements won’t help them -Shoumitro Chatterjee and Mekhala Krishnamurthy
-ThePrint.in An RBI report says that despite numerous existing initiatives, at most 40 per cent of India’s small and marginal farmers are covered by formal credit. There is no doubt that agricultural credit is a critical element of both agricultural production and marketing across India. However, during a period of acute crisis, the government needs to bank on channels that are relatively robust and far-reaching. Unfortunately, especially when it comes to small...
More »Provide income support, restore jobs -R Nagaraj and Radhicka Kapoor
-The Hindu On the contrary, scrapping labour laws will only reduce wages, lower earnings and reduce consumer demand Following the adage, “never waste a crisis”, the government of Uttar Pradesh, last week, introduced an ordinance that has scrapped most labour laws for three years — ostensibly for creating jobs and for attracting factories exiting China following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. These laws deal with the occupational safety, health and working...
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