-The Hindu Telangana’s experience is instructive The institutionalisation of “social audits” to ensure implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been challenging. Since being included in the 2005 Act at the behest of social movements, social audits have been ineffective in most parts of the country due to government indifference. So far, 26 States have created social audit units (SAUs), but the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) detailed guidelines...

-The Telegraph Patna: Districts in Bihar would soon have dedicated officials who would be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the schemes run under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The officials would be known as district programme officer (DPO). "The appointments are going to be made for smooth running of schemes under MGNREGA and all the works related to these schemes would be supervised and coordinated by these officials," a...

-The Hindu India must debate solutions to the Employment problem, as a true democracy should and would In January this year, the Prime Minister made this statement: “7 million new jobs created in 2017”. The statement draws on false conclusions of a study by two economists. Here is another: “10-12 million young people join the workforce every year and 7 million new and formal jobs were created in 2017,” said the Minister of...

-Newsclick.in Despite providing capital for an economically and socially disastrous project, World Bank’s International Financial Corporation has claimed immunity from legal action. A fishing community in Kutch, Gujarat, has moved several courts in the United States seeking damages from the International Financial Corporation (IFC). The IFC is the private investment lending arm of the World Bank Group, and is hiding from legal action behind an immunity law. The claims were dismissed by the...

-Business Standard/ India Spend Delays in wage payment have been a constant throughout MGNREGS implementation Bachcha Lal’s shirt hung loosely over his frail body, exposing his sunken collarbones, as he stood outside his straw-thatched home in central Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Bundelkhand region. “They all rely on me,” he said, pointing towards his tubercular son, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter. Illiterate and a landless labourer, 65-year-old Lal makes about Rs 175 a day when he...