The on-going Mazdoor Satyagrah  has demanded the setting up of a accountability commission in the state. Activists of the Satyagrah will be writing to chief minister Ashok Gehlot asking him to do this. The demand follows alleged measures by the government to penalise MGNREGA workers and its own employees coming late to Offices, alleged activists. "It is a follow-up of an exercise we did on Thursday. Having visited various government Offices between...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which has revitalised the rural landscape across the country, stands diminished in the land of its birth, Rajasthan, hijacked and held to ransom by vested interests and stripped of its backbone of an open social audit. As the Andhra experience has shown, there is one ingredient that can bring back its vitality: institutionalising citizen audits. But, is the Rajasthan government up to...

Delay in payment of wages to beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Ranchi would be looked into."We have made a request to the Labour Commissioner to look into the delay in payments and register complaints so a fine could be imposed against those responsible in delaying payment," the Ranchi Deputy Commissioner, K K Soan, told newsmen here today.A social audit had found that banks and...

Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar today expressed unhappiness over non-availing of agricultural  loan by the farmers of the North-Eastern States in the way it was expected, which he feels has hampered investment and finally the overall agricultural production of the region. "Though the Centre has doubled the agricultural credit amount recently and Centre has been able to disburse Rs 3, 50,000 crore this year, the North Eastern States have not...

  The sea change that India’s national scheme for rural employment guarantee has accomplished is hard to fathom, its vastness touching the lives or more than 100 million people. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (NREGA, subsequently renamed after Mahatma Gandhi, or MGNREGA) was a landmark in Indian legislation. Under the act, as of April 2008, for the first time in India’s history, all rural citizens have a legal right...