Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...
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PM-KISAN is not reaching all farmer households as intended -Bornali Bhandari, Santanu Pramanik and Sonalde Desai
-The Indian Express Given this uncertainty over the reach of PM-KISAN and its targeting, the relevance of the scheme needs to be carefully evaluated during this period. The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is the first universal basic income-type of scheme targeted towards landed farmers. It was introduced in December 2018 to manage agricultural stress. Initially, the scheme was targeted at small and medium landed farmers, but with the declining growth...
More »Delayed Audit Reports, Lower Output Marked Last Two Years of CAG’s Functioning -Himanshu Upadhyaya
-TheWire.in As the tenure of the current CAG of India comes to an end in August, just how impactful has the national auditor been in recent times? When Parliament’s budget session for the year 2020 started on January 30, political and economic observers hoped to see tabling of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India’s Audit Report on Union Government (Finance Accounts). However, these hopes were dashed when on the third day,...
More »Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »Four Ways that MGNREGA Can Be Expanded to Help India's Rural Economy -Mampi Bose and Shantanu De Roy
-TheWire.in While the increased allocation and attention is welcome, it will not be enough to counter the crisis. The current pandemic has led to loss of livelihood of substantial sections of the India population. With the economy, particularly production activities in the big urban centres, having come to a standstill, a process of reverse migration to villages took place. This decline in economic activities is taking place against a background of continuously...
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