-The Hindu In a bid to banish the spectre of open defecation within a decade, the government has increased its spending on toilets for rural areas, hiking the amount to be spent for a household latrine from the existing Rs.4,600 to Rs.10,000. On Thursday, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the increased allocation for the Total Sanitation Campaign — now renamed the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) — from Rs.1,500 crore in...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Total Matching Records found : 2375
Both home ministry, UIDAI to gather data, cabinet decides
-IANS The union cabinet Thursday discussed a fresh row between the home ministry and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and decided both will collect biometric data of 1.2 billion Indians, said sources. The home ministry, headed by P. Chidambaram, and the UIDAI, headed by Nandan Nilekani, have been battling over the issue of collection of biometric data which entails the right to scan people's eyes and fingerprints. In January, a cabinet...
More »Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia defends Rs 35L spent on toilets-Abheek Barman
While the government wants India to tighten its belt, the Planning Commission can afford to, well, flush with cash. On Wednesday, Commission chief Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that Rs 35 lakh spent on two toilets in his office was not public money down the drain. Ahluwalia explained that these were not toilets, but "toilet complexes." Each of these complexes can accommodate 10 people at a time. He did not specify whether taxpayers would...
More »Not flush with ideas
-The Hindustan Times People may say all sorts of things about the Planning Commission of India and its five-year plans and the catchy terminologies it comes up with (of course, with a little help from the government in power). But there is no getting away from the fact that the body knows how to plan well, at least when it comes to its own needs. According to a news report, the panel...
More »Plan panel rejects stink on toilets
-PTI The Planning Commission today clarified that Rs 35 lakh wasn’t spent on two of its toilets but an entire block of lavatories under “routine maintenance” and said it was “unfortunate” to call it wasteful expenditure. “While the amount of Rs 35 lakh being mentioned (in an RTI reply) is correct, an impression is being created that this has been spent on two toilets. This is totally false because these toilet blocks...
More »
