The Government has included small and marginal farmers under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA by an amendment made in para 1(iv) of the list of permissible activities provided in Schedule-I of the Act. The amendment made is as follows: “Provision of irrigation facility, horticulture plantation and land development facilities to land owned by households belonging to the Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes or below poverty line families or to beneficiaries of land...
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Short On The Delivery by Chandrani Banerjee
When it came to power in May 2009, some ministers in the UPA government had set themselves a deadline of 100 days to show results. But one year and nine-odd months later, the report card of its flagship programmes in nine states hit by Maoism is dismal. Much of the money allocated has gone unspent, according to the “performance study” the Planning Commission conducted in these states and submitted to...
More »NREGS worker demands revised wages, is beaten to death by Manoj Prasad
A 50-year-old labourer, Subal Mahato, was allegedly beaten to death by his employer for demanding revised wages in accordance with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), in Bokaro on Saturday night. According to NREGA Commissioner Ajay Kumar Singh, Mahato, a resident of Bathua village under Chas block in Bokaro district, was one of the nine workers hired to dig a well. The project, sanctioned for 2010-11, was undertaken...
More »Funding crisis hits efforts to make banking services easy for Nrega beneficiaries by Devika Banerji
A funding crisis has hit the government's efforts to leverage the banking correspondent model to provide banking services to the beneficiaries of its flagship rural employment guarantee scheme. Work has stopped in Orissa, the first state to adopt the model in all districts, after State Bank of India (SBI) refused to bear the cost of this financial inclusion drive for the beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee...
More »Noted jurists express dismay at Prime Minister’s NREGA statement
Say there is no way the workers can be paid less than the minimum wages Open Statement on Prime Minister’s Assertion that the NREGA Wage Rate is ‘Delinked’ from the Minimum Wages Act We the undersigned are shocked at the Prime Minister’s statement in a letter to the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council that ‘statutorily the wage rate under NREGA is delinked and independent of the provisions of the Minimum...
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