The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)’s ambitious plan of issuing a unique biometric-enabled number, innocuously called ‘aadhaar’, to every Indian resident has finally begun to generate a debate on citizen-State relations, privacy, financial implications, and operational practicalities. What the debate has largely missed so far, however, is the credibility of the UIDAI’s claims in the field of social policy, particularly the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and Public Distribution...

Members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), the government body for implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, have suggested that jobs be guaranteed round the year in Naxal-hit regions. The suggestion, made by one of the six working groups set up for improving the scope of the MNREGS, came up for discussion at Friday's CEGC meeting here. The group said that in drought prone areas and regions...

The implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is plagu-ed by a series of lapses including financial misappropriation worth several crores of rupees and graft leading to booking of cases against officials including mandal parishad development officers and suspension of several technical and field staff in Godavari districts. In East Godavari, a whopping amount of Rs 4.06 crores were found misappropriated during Social Audit being held at the village...

The RTI application spilled out mind-boggling inconsistencies “THIS is our NREGS [National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme] farm pond [water harvesting structure],” says 24-year-old Dhanpati with a flourish. Puzzled by his rhetorical declaration, I ask him: “Where is it?” “It is this. You are standing on it,” he says with a wry smile. The farm pond, one of the agricultural revival measures planned by the Central government under the scheme, has not been dug at...

Suffering from extreme poverty and male oppression, the women of Darkali village in Madhya Pradesh, India, are now able to feed their families through employment under the MGNREGS. The wages obtained under the Scheme help them augment the family resource base. Jashmabai is working under the punishing sun on an earthen dam in her village of Darkali, in Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, being built under the government-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...