To promote self-employment among people living below poverty line (BPL), particularly women, the rural development ministry proposes to set up a dedicated national bank for women self-help groups (SHGs) and also lower the interest rate on the credit they receive from any nationalized bank. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday said he will soon take up both these proposals with the finance ministry. “We have proposed a detailed paper for a...

In Uttar Pradesh's most impoverished region, Bundelkhand, government officials feed off not just the living but also the dead. Headlines Today has exposed how corrupt officials exploit the grieving families of farmers, who have committed suicide.   In a visit to Bundelkhand in 2008, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi repeated a phrase borrowed from his father Rajiv Gandhi: "Out of 100 paise, only 15 paise reaches the poor".   While travelling through this dustbowl...

-The Business Standard A panel headed by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has advocated the use of unique identification numbers to plug loopholes in the public distribution system (PDS). The working group on PDS reforms, which finalised its draft report today, has also suggested a nationwide computerised system for tracking transportation and distribution of PDS items. “We have approved the draft report and will give it to the Prime Minister...

-The Business Standard   Indian economy has been on a sustained growth path, but Indians are still spending a major chunk of their expenditure on food items. Per capita consumption expenditure in a month was 88 per cent more in case of urban India compared to rural India during 2009-10, a trend which was more or less five years ago, according to the latest figures on consumption expenditure. Per capita expenditure on consumption for...

In a move that could revolutionise the subsidy payment mechanism for LPG cylinder and kerosene oil to the beneficiaries, especially the poor, and change the fertilizer subsidy payment mechanism for the farmers, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has suggested direct cash transfer through banks and ATMs to the targeted groups to ‘plug leakages' in the implementation of these schemes. The move is also likely to revamp the working of...