India’s plan to offer unique identity (UID) cards to all citizens will bring a range of banking services within reach of millions of poor who currently cannot even open a bank account, says a report released on Friday by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is executing the project. Facilities such as microfinance are beyond the reach of many poor people in both towns and villages who do not...

Just as microcredit on its own does not represent full financial inclusion, it is our view that neither do business correspondent accounts In a country of 1.2 billion individuals, if we exclude children, we should at least have 900 million bank account holders before we can say the job of basic inclusion in banking is complete. No matter how we count, however, the actual number of bank account holders do not...

Primarily to address issues related to spending and implementation India’s apex planning body is drawing up a set of proposed reforms for the country’s flagship rural job guarantee programme, primarily to address issues related to spending and implementation. The changes proposed under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) will be sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by the end of this month for consideration, said Mihir Shah, member, Planning...

KEY TRENDS    • The proportion of households which completed 100 days of wage employment under MGNREGA in total households that worked was 6.02 percent in 2014-15, 10.07 percent in 2015-16, 7.79 percent in 2016-17 and 5.78 percent in 2017-18 @$ • Completed works as a proportion of total works was 30.15 percent in 2014-15, 29.39 percent in 2015-16, 40.27 percent in 2016-17, 32.01 percent in 2017-18 and 3.3 percent in 2018-19 (as on 7th May, 2018) @$   • In...

**page** [inside]KEY TRENDS of the Union Budget 2023-24[/inside] Budget 2023-24 is the last full budget before the general election scheduled for 2024. An analysis of the budget allocations suggests that the union government has squeezed expenditure, particularly on food subsidy and the NREGA budget, while boosting Capital expenditure and giving the middle class tax benefits. Social sector activists working on Right to Food, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) came out with...