-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Union rural development ministry today highlighted the findings of select studies to defend its plan to modify the rural job guarantee scheme and answer critics who have accused it of trying to dilute the programme. A ministry note that cited these studies said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) needed reforms to increase the creation of productive and durable assets and reduce politics and...

-FirstPost.com What compelled a group of leading economists from India and abroad to shoot a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the government's job scheme - the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA? Is it to speak out against the government's desperation to throttle the scheme or did the economists sense any ulterior motive behind the government's move? A section of prominent Indian economists working out of the country or...

-The Hindustan Times If the news reports doing the rounds are to be believed, the NDA is planning to further dilute the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the country's single-largest flagship programme that has a budget of Rs. 34,000 crore for 2014-15. While most governments when they come to power do tinker with schemes launched by their predecessors - the MGNREGA was the UPA's pet scheme - this...

-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...

-The Financial Express The proposed MGNREGA changes can help plug the leakages and enhance agriculture productivity There is good news about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme. Recent press reports reveal that the rural development minister, Nitin Gadkari, has instructed lowering of the mandatory share for unskilled wages in total expenditure from the current 60% to 51%. He has also directed, quite rightly, that 50% of the expenditure be...