-The Hindu Rs. 8,000-Rs. 10,000 crore to be spent, says Gadkari. Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari said the government will spend ?8,000 to ?10,000 crore this year to ensure that at least 70% of the Ganga will be clean by next May. The government has only spent ?4,500 crore since 2015 when the ?20,000-crore tranche for cleaning the 2,500-km long river was operationalised. “This year we have sent a note [to the Finance...
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Govt said buy VVPATs from private sector, Election Commission said no, will hurt public faith -Ritika Chopra
-The Indian Express In 2013, the Supreme Court ordered the poll panel to introduce VVPATs in a phased manner, and the Commission has committed to have it in place by the time of the 2019 general elections. New Delhi: ARGUING that the involvement of private players could hurt the credibility of the electoral process, the Election Commission (EC) rejected the government’s proposal to buy voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) units from private...
More »Karnataka excels in social audit coverage of both districts & GPs under MGNREGA in 2017-18
One of the salient features of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (2005) is that there are provisions in it to ensure transparency and accountability. Section 17(2) of the MGNREGA says that the gram sabha shall conduct regular social audits of all the projects under the scheme taken up within the gram panchayat (GP). In addition to that, Section 17(3) of the MGNREGA states that the GP shall make...
More »RTI lock off travel details
-PTI New Delhi: The Central Information Commission has directed the Bureau of Immigration, an agency exempted from RTI Act disclosures, to give a person details of his travel as he needed it for defence in penal proceedings that landed him in jail. The CIC underlined that any impediment to a person's self-defence would be a breach of human rights. The case pertains to RTI applicant M. Dinesh, who had sought information related to...
More »Improving social audits -Suchi Pande & Rakesh R Dubbudu
-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has Been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have Been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...
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