-The Economic Times I have often been asked how Chhattisgarh manages the contradictory pulls of sound fiscal health and welfare schemes. How did we manage to roll out food and nutrition security to not just the most needy among us but to almost the entire population of a state that has had a history of malnutrition and neglect, without jeopardising Chhattisgarh's finances? As finance minister for the last eight years, I have...
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No model state -Christophe Jaffrelot
-The Indian Express In Gujarat, growth relies on indebtedness. And relegates development. The Gujarat pattern of development has often been arraigned from the left because of its social deficits. Indeed, the state's social indicators do not match its economic performance. With 23 per cent of its citizens living below the poverty line in 2010, Gujarat does better than the Indian average - 29.8 per cent - but it reduced this proportion by...
More »Bonded Labour System still a reality -Urmi A Goswami
-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: After losing her husband to an illness, Jeyanthi (name changed) was forced to step in as the bread earner for her six young children. With no education, work was hard to come by for her, and existence was at bare subsistence levels. Jeyanthi got by, working as a casual labourer; and as her sons became older, they too pitched in. Life was to take a nastier...
More »CAG finds Rs. 650-cr. fraud in job scheme
-The Hindu Bangalore: Large-scale irregularities - running to over Rs. 650 crore - has been detected in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) across the State in the last five years in an audit conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The audit report states that the possibility of fraud cannot be ruled out, as about 63.80 lakh individuals identified as ineligible for employment were...
More »Nitish Kumar writes to Prime Minister seeking higher wages under NREGA -Urmi A Goswami
-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is leveraging his politically 'unattached' status to seek higher wages for his people under the Centre's rural employment guarantee scheme. Kumar, being wooed by the Congress after he parted ways with the BJP, has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that the state plans to raise NREGA payments to align them with the statutory minimum wage. "Notification of lower wage rates...
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