-The Business Standard PlanCom meets this month to hasten implementation; initial focus on target coverage might cover 300 districts After reposing faith in the Aadhaar project at its cabinet meeting last week, the Narendra Modi government wants Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) to 80% of beneficiaries in five key schemes "as soon as possible". These include the cooking gas subsidy, where DBT was stalled under the previous government. The other schemes are on transfer...
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Modi's PMO overloaded as ministries go slow on decisions -Nivedita Mookerji, Jyoti Mukul & Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-The Business Standard Ministers in the Narendra Modi government have been busy making presentations on their 100 days of work. But what these presentations do not mention is that decisions by ministers have been few, with plenty of papers and files moving to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which is increasingly emerging as a centralised clearance point, even for routine and ordinary issues. Though policy paralysis was a term used freely...
More »Medha asks Tatas to return land to Singur farmers
-The Hindu Kolkata: After the Calcutta High Court struck down the State Government's Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, the case is now in the Supreme Court. After her meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, noted social activist Medha Patkar said on Friday that Tata Motors' authorities should be more liberal in the issue of returning the land of farmers in Singur. The meeting took place at the State secretariat, Nabanna. After...
More »Planning Commission replacement shouldn't allocate funds, say experts -Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-The Business Standard The new institution could play the role of a 'think tank' A high-level meeting to frame a new body to replace the Planning Commission is learnt to have arrived at a broad consensus that allocation of Plan funds should not be the domain of the new entity but of the finance ministry. The new institution, it was agreed, could play the role of a "think tank". Officials in the...
More »Cloud still hangs over Aadhaar's future -Surabhi Agarwal
-The Business Standard Nilekani probably managed to save the project by a persuasive talk with Modi, but the concerns haven't gone away It is widely believed that Nandan Nilekani's meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saved the ambitious Aadhaar project from oblivion or a takeover by the home ministry. Within a couple of days of the meeting, Modi gave directions to expedite enrolments through Aadhaar, along with the direct benefits transfer (DBT) project...
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