The rural development ministry has mooted the idea of concurrent evaluation of welfare schemes. Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has put forward a proposal to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, outlining the proposed concurrent evaluation network to improve the efficiency and quality of outcomes of all rural development schemes.  The government's annual budget for rural development comes second only to defence. In the current fiscal, the ministry's allocation (including spend on drinking...

West Bengal: An agrarian crisis looms over the State as farmers commit suicide in spite of a bumper crop. THE topic of suicide figured repeatedly in Safar Molla's conversations with his neighbours a few days before his death. The 18-year-old marginal farmer from Kaltikuri village in Bardhaman district's Bhatar block talked about it quite casually, in fact even jocularly. Everybody in the village knew he was up to his neck in...

-Zee News   A successful use of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) in Nanded, one of the most backward districts of Maharashtra, has seen groundwater levels improving dramatically over the past three years.  Shrikar Pardeshi, District Collector, received an award from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for "Effective Initiative under MGNREGA" for 2010-11 a few days ago.  "(Over last three years) The groundwater level in the district has increased by 9 meters. The...

-The Telegraph   Sonia Gandhi decried corruption in the rural jobs scheme as a “crime against the poor”, the words coming on a day the Supreme Court cancelled over 100 graft-tainted 2G licences. “We cannot ignore cases of corruption in this scheme. Corruption in MGNREGA is a crime against the poor people,” the Congress chief said at a programme organised here to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the scheme. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...

As minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh oversees the largest spending in the social sector by the government. This includes the marquee Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) that was pioneered by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in 2006. The minister, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is known for his forthrightness. In a typically candid interview to Mint on...