-Society for Social and Economic Research Monograph 20/3 Key Messages Lack of planning and preparation by the Central government for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a massive blow to India’s economy and has caused enormous hardships to working people of the country. Harvesting of Rabi crops • Unplanned and sudden imposition of the lockdown resulted in a massive and unprecedented disruption to agricultural activities such as harvesting, sale of agricultural produce, and purchase...

-Hindustan Times Less than 57% of the people who sought work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have received jobs under the programme. At a time when millions of migrant workers who have returned home to the hinterland are looking towards it for a livelihood, the government’s flagship rural jobs programme has got off to a slow start in the new financial year, government data show, amid the...

-TheWire.in The increased allocation is welcome, but experts say the government should also work to solve pending liability issues and other techno-bureaucratic problems that hold back its effectiveness. New Delhi: On Sunday, while announcing the fifth and final tranche of the Centre’s COVID-19 economic relief package, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government will be allocating an additional Rs 40,000 crore under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). “It...

-Livemint.com * MGNREGS guarantees 100 days of work in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work * In 2019-20, which was considered a normal monsoon year without rural distress, 2.65 billion person days were created NEW DELHI: The Union government on Sunday injected an extra ₹40,000 crore into the national rural jobs programme, extending a helping hand to millions of rural poor, as well as...

-The Hindu Business Line Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha among better performers in providing work: Rural Development Ministry data Less than half the rural households that demanded work in the last 45 days were offered work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), data on the Ministry of Rural Development website show. Data updated as on May 15 show that 2.48 crore rural households across India had demanded work in the...