SHEILA DEVI, 54, of Nangal Kalan village in Haryana’s Sonepat district cannot comprehend how Taneja Developers and Infrastructure Ltd (TDI) procured her two-acre plot in 2004, ‘signed’ with thumb impressions of her husband Narender Singh, who died in 2002 and his brother Bhupender, who went missing the next year. The documents are obviously forged. But how did a farmers’ family get cheated in Haryana, where the land acquisition policy formed in...

-The Hindu   The services will enable transfer, application procedures to be brought to one's door Last Christmas Eve, 35 people in a remote village of Jharkhand received a unique present. They became the first Indians to access their Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme bank accounts on their doorstep, having had their identities authenticated through their Aadhaar numbers. They are among the earliest beneficiaries of the next phase of the ambitious —...

-The Hindu Congress president, Prime Minister call for timely payment of wages Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday brought up the alleged embezzlement of funds meant for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme — an issue that has put the Mayawati government in the dock — at a function commemorating the completion of six years of the job entitlement scheme. Holding the State governments responsible for the shortcomings, Prime Minister Manmohan...

-The Hindustan Times   Delay in payment of wages to workers is the  biggest concern under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on the 6th anniversary of the right to work scheme on Thursday. “We achieved many a success but several challenges still remain. The biggest concern is ensuring timely payment to  workers. Wage delays force the workers to take costly loans to meet their...

-The Telegraph   Sonia Gandhi decried corruption in the rural jobs scheme as a “crime against the poor”, the words coming on a day the Supreme Court cancelled over 100 graft-tainted 2G licences. “We cannot ignore cases of corruption in this scheme. Corruption in MGNREGA is a crime against the poor people,” the Congress chief said at a programme organised here to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the scheme. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...