The government will set up statelevel independent bodies to carry out financial and social audits of its flagship rural employment guarantee programme, which critics say is riddled with corruption. The rural development ministry will also make it mandatory for state governments to submit a report on the social audit, which unlike other government audits, allows beneficiaries of the scheme to register complaints. The move to increase transparency in the Mahatma...

-The Times of India   Farmers in Sivaganga district have alleged that funds to the tune of Rs 8 lakh was misappropriated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) in Vengalur panchayat in Devakottai taluk. Villagers alleged that a panchayat clerk had siphoned off the money allotted for desilting a tank, a key source of water for agriculture in the locality. Based on a report on the alleged...

The mid-term appraisal of the rural development programmes during the ongoing 11th Five-Year Plan points out several holes in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Uttar Pradesh. This not only reaffirms the public perception of poor performance of UP, but also sets aside the defence put up against scathing criticism of her government by chief minister Mayawati time and again. The development has come...

-Press Trust of India   In spite of achieving success in the bigger states, the UPA government's flagship MGNREGA scheme appears to have failed in fulfilling its objective in small and remote places like Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep. According to Rural Development Ministry data, no household or person was provided employment under the scheme in Daman and Diu in 2010-11, while it was only 2290 in...

Only 400,000 jobs a year were generated during UPA-1, compared with 12 million annually during the NDA’s tenure Key economic data released by the government on Friday shows that the first stint of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) generated a mere 400,000 jobs a year, compared with 12 million jobs annually during the tenure of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). During the period 2004-05 to...