Though efforts have been initiated to allure labourers towards MGNREGA schemes, a latest issue at hand is the payment of wages on time. "If an officer takes interest in the execution of schemes of the centrally- sponsored Act, there will be no problem in payment of wages," said MGNREGA national inquiry committee member Wilfred Lakra, prasing the BDOs of Dumri and Ghaghra Shishir Kumar Singh and Manoj Kumar respectively for taking...

In a bid to eradicate unemployment from the state, a large part of which has gradually been urbanized over the years, the government plans to introduce an employment scheme that will guarantee jobs for the city poor throughout the year. "Nearly 50% of the state has been urbanized and a large proportion of the population does not have a job. The government plans to introduce an employment guarantee scheme (EGS) for...

The Sirohi police have decided not to register FIRs over irregularities committed in Mahatma Gandhi National Rrural Employment Guarantee Schemes (MGNREGS) unless the complaint is backed by an audit report. Superintendent of police for Sirohi, Vipul Chaturvedi passed a written order to this effect for all police station in-charges in the district during a law and order meeting held on March 13, 2011. "Cases shall not be registered against people who...

“Quartz grinding is one of the deadliest occupations” “Slowly, but surely, every one of us who has been to the factories in Gujarat will die, and there is nothing we can do to change that,” Buddha (45) of Undli village says bitterly. Buddha lost his 18-year-old-son Mohan to acute silicosis a year ago. His 16-year-old daughter Ghamma is still suffering from the disease. Silicosis, the deadly scourge unleashed upon migrant labourers of...

Rising farm wages, which have a major impact on food prices, may force the government to devise a blueprint in which agricultural work is included under a widened ambit of a government's flagship job surety scheme, a key government official said. "We may need to come up with some sort of a special agreement for wage payment to beneficiaries working on farms since they are privately owned," Ashok Gulati, noted farm...