Sanjay Dixit is a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, a statutory body set up under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). He was initially chosen by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi to head an NREGA cell in Uttar Pradesh where he has become an official whistleblower of sorts, unearthing several instances of fund diversion in many districts. He talks about the malaise in the five-year-old law that...
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Budgetary support to Plan spend hiked 18% by Neeraj Thakur
The ministry of finance and the Planing Commission have finally agreed on increasing gross budgetary support by 18% for the terminal year of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-2012). GBS is the monetary assistance provided by the Centre to implement schemes in five-year plans. The ministry of finance will allocate around Rs4.41 lakh crore as part of the planned expenditure in the Budget for the next fiscal, compared with an allocation of Rs3.73...
More »Rural work scheme cuts spend, wants more cash by Sreelatha Menon
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the United Progressive Alliance government’s flagship programme, has so far spent just 56 per cent of its Budget allocation of Rs 40,000 crore. It has also recorded a fall in the average number of workdays per household this financial year. Government managers are asking for a 60 per cent rise in allocation for the scheme in the next financial year. Rs 20,854...
More »An aam aadmi sarkar fights the poor by Vidya Subrahmaniam
It is tragic that the same government that gives huge corporate concessions and loses money in corruption is fighting over minimum wages. As India's — and by some reckoning the world's — largest rights-based rural safety net programme completes five years, here is a reality check. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has become the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But in a monumental affront to the...
More »Civil society groups to do NREGA audit again
The Manmohan Singh government has moved in to restore the role of civil society groups in conducting the social audit of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in an attempt to weed out corruption from various levels. The Rural Development Ministry is in consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General to remove the lacuna that had cropped up after social audit rules were amended in 2009 to eliminate...
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