-The Economic Times It was in the mid-eighties that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi said if the Centre released a rupee for the poor, only 15 paisa reached them. Decades later, not much has changed. With leakages, delays, and uneven implementation of welfare schemes like NREGA, blunting benefits to the poor, the rural development ministry is proposing to put in place a system to assess the effectiveness of the schemes even...
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Spurt in crimes against dalits, Bihar records highest number of cases-Deeptimaan Tiwary
-The Times of India Bihar witnessed the highest number of caste-based crimes in the country in 2011, data released by the National Crime Records Bureau said. NCRB figures also showed that there was a spurt in crimes under the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in the entire country with 2011 witnessing 11,342 cases — an increase of 7.9% over the previous year. With 3,024 cases under SC/ST Act, Bihar accounted for...
More »Real-time evaluation programme languishing, PM tells Ahluwalia-Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu A quarter of a century ago, the then Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Manmohan Singh, started a programme of concurrent – or real-time – evaluation of the government’s rural development schemes. On Saturday, the Prime Minister expressed surprise that such processes are “languishing” and “not in good shape” and asked the present Deputy Chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, to “apply his mind to making good this deficiency.” The Prime Minister was...
More »Manmohan Singh seeks quick fix for delayed NREGS payments
-The Times of India In a rare move, government on Saturday released a compendium of independent studies on job guarantee scheme — both appreciative and critical of the programme — prompting Prime Minister Manmohan Singhto ask the rural development ministry to fix the issue of delayed payment for workers and minister Jairam Ramesh flagging corruption as a problem. Top policymakers of UPA gathered at the PM's residence for the release of "MGNREGA...
More »Government's rural employment scheme MGNREGA leaves a lot to be desired-Urmi Goswami
-The Economic Times The positive impact on agricultural wages and distress migration from rural areas not withstanding, the government's flagship rural employment scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, leaves a lot to be desired for. This is evident from the rural development ministry's compendium of more than 100 major research papers on the programme, MGNREGA Sameeksha. The slim 120-odd page volume, which is to be released by the Prime Minister...
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