The government’s biggest welfare programme could see an almost 60 per cent increase in funding. The forthcoming Budget is likely to make a provision of Rs 64,000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in 2011-12, against Rs 40,100 crore in the current fiscal. The huge increase in outlay will be mainly on account of two factors: Linking wages under the scheme with the consumer price...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory Minimum Wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

Senior Congress leader Vilasrao Deshmukh, who took charge today as the Union rural development minister, said he would look into the controversy over delinking the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the government’s largest rural employment programme, from the Minimum Wages Act. “I have to go into the matter, as I am not aware of the ministry’s position and the court rulings in the matter so far,” he said. Yesterday, former Supreme...

Manmohan turned down Sonia Gandhi's request He agreed to an index-linked rise in current wages Expressing distress at the Prime Minister's refusal to pay the statutory Minimum Wages to workers under the employment guarantee programme, a group of 150 social activists has criticised the government's decision to merely allow an index-linked rise in current wages. They accused the Prime Minister of further undermining the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) by...

A generally beleaguered microfinance industry was eagerly waiting for Yezdi Malegam for deliverance. Any conversation about the microfinance business would end with the expectation that the Malegam committee would deliver a healthy dose of oxygen to the choking microfinance industry. The report was expected to be the panacea for all that ails microfinance in India. The report, which came out on Monday, disappoints not only in its inability to meet these...