After being mired in controversies across the nation over multi-crore scams, the MGNREGA scheme hasn’t quite made headway in Bulandshahr district’s Anupshahr yet, say Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan “MGNREGA is a flop in Uttar Pradesh,” extended NGO worker Manish Sharma, as small talk, at the block development office of Anupshahr in the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh. Despite having been in force since 2005, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment...

The UPA government has decided to allow cash payment of wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in a desperate bid to increase demand for jobs that had gone down due to delayed payment of remuneration. Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh on Monday made the announcement stating that the facility would be allowed in all the 60 left wing extremist (LWE) affected districts where...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is under pressure from several quarters. One such source of pressure is the rural rich whose concerns were recently voiced by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, when he raised the bogey of shortage of supply of farm workers because of the employment guarantee scheme. The fact is that the national average for workdays generated under the scheme is less than half of the...

-The Hindu Business Line   The Rural Development Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh's proposal to amend the law on minimum wages to permit a lower wage for employment under the rural jobs scheme (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA) makes practical sense. The Karnataka High Court ruled recently that wages set under MGNREGA cannot be independent of the MWA. Effectively, it means there can be no such thing as an...

-The Hindu   An event called ‘Navjyoti' was organised by UNICEF in collaboration with DD Sahyadri to honour these girls from Maharashtra For the many poor girls who drop out of school in Maharashtra's rural hinterland, there are those who decide to stay. And then there are those who stage a comeback. It's what Lata Batku did, after being forced to drop out of school to take care of her baby sister. Her village...