-Down to Earth How did the government apply Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act to the payments of MGNREGA remuneration, which in no way seem to be in accordance with the guidelines of the Act The payments of wages in MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are done through  the Aadhaar Payments Bridge (APB) using the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) systems. Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act has been applied to...

-Newsclick.in The scheme, which is similar to MGNREGS, is an employment-of-last-resort programme in order to provide minimum livelihood security to the poorest of the poor in the urban areas in absence of enough employment opportunity in the economy. In the midst of increasing unemployment in the country, along with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for the rural poor, the state government of Kerala has an interesting employment-of-last-resort programme for...

-Networkideas.org The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that brought the MGNREGS into being was a unique piece of legislation in the history of independent India. It stipulated that employment was to be made available on demand, within a fortnight of being asked for, failing which an unemployment allowance had to be paid. True, its scope was confined only to rural areas, and it promised employment only up to 100 days per...

-Networkideas.org The basic income scheme that is in the air these days, which amounts to handing over a certain sum of money to every household to ensure that it reaches a threshold cash income, is an extremely flawed scheme. Instead of enjoining upon the state the obligation to provide essential goods and services like food, education, and health, to its citizens, it absolves the State of all such responsibility, once it...

-The Hindu Strengthening the MGNREGA would be more prudent than a targeted cash transfer plan like PM-KISAN Rural distress has hit unprecedented levels. According to news reports, unemployment is the highest in 45 years. To allay some misgivings of the distress, one of the announcements in the Budget speech was that “vulnerable landholding farmer families, having cultivable land up to 2 hectares, will be provided direct income support at the rate of...