As many as 9.063 lakh Manav Divas under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) have been created for the job card holders, since April in Dehradun district, said a department officers while talking to The Pioneer on Tuesday. He said that the department has spent `15.11 crore for providing employment to the job card holders under the MNREGA since April in the district. While talking to The Pioneer Doiwala Block...

Union Rural Development Minister C P Joshi on Saturday said the Gujarat government has not been able to implement the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Grantee Act schemes up to the mark. Joshi, who is also the president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, was in Vadodara to watch the Ranji Trophy tie between Rajasthan and Vadodara. “There have been complaints from Gujarat about the implementation of the NREGA schemes and during the...

A small farmer in Maharashtra, whose high-yielding rice variety is popular in five States, is denied the benefits of his research. TWENTY-SEVEN years ago, Dadaji Khobragade of Nanded Fakir village in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra noticed yellow seeds in three spikes of a paddy stalk in his field. Intrigued by the freak harvest, he preserved the grains. He subsequently planted them in a six-foot square plot, which he covered with thorny...

The National Advisory Council's recommendations on the National Food Security Bill are in danger of being brushed aside. It is the fate of most advisory committees that the government accepts whatever advice suits its purposes and ignores the rest. The first version of the National Advisory Council (NAC-1) managed to avoid that fate to some extent, due to favourable circumstances. NAC-1 was able to persuade the government to enact the...

In a bid to facilitate agriculture and rural development in the backward state, Nabard today launched a Rs 25,019 crore credit plan for Orissa during 2011-12. The credit plan was launched by state Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadai at the state level credit seminar here. While annual credit plan for the state during the current fiscal is Rs 16,915 crore, it was increased by 48 per cent for 2011-12. While agricultural...