-MSN The Rural Development Ministry has turned down a request from the Agriculture ministry to suspend MGNREGA projects during peak farming seasons because of labour shortage. Agriculture Secretary P K Basu had written to the Rural Development Ministry to this effect recently. He had sought amendment in the job guarantee scheme so that agriculture is not effected particularly during sowing and harvesting period, sources in the Rural Development Ministry said. The letter had...
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Do Posco differently by Mahtab Alam
Mahtab Alam examines the trouble with the steel project and suggests a way out THE PROPOSED mega Posco project and the anti-Posco movement are back in the news after the violence at the proposed site on 16 July. According to the reports I got, on that day, eight platoons of police attacked and lathicharged peaceful protesters in the village of Nuagaon, Jagatsinghpur district, Odisha. The protesters, despite being mostly women, were...
More »NREGA convergence with water storage & Krishi Vikas planned, says Jairam Ramesh
The Rural Development Ministry seems to be a familiar ground for Jairam Ramesh . No sooner was he given the new portfolio, he announced that the two bills related to land acquisition would be clubbed. The minister spells out his priorities in an exclusive interview with ET. Excerpts: What will be the key motif for the omnibus land acquisition law you are proposing? The bill will be facilitative not restrictive....
More »Banks may be paid for MGNREGS accounts by Remya Nair
The government plans to pay `80 every year for three years to state-owned banks for each account they have for a beneficiary of the rural job guarantee scheme. This is expected to provide an incentive to lenders to ensure quicker delivery of wages under India’s flagship welfare programme. “We have made a proposal to the finance ministry that a public sector bank gets paid `80 per year for each MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi...
More »Govt knocks off key provisions in Bill by Samar Halarnkar
New tensions are emerging between the government and its think tank, with the food ministry making major changes to a National Advisory Council (NAC) draft of a new law slated to become the blockbuster social-security scheme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s troubled second tenure. Key provisions of the national food security Bill, 2011, due to be introduced in Parliament’s next session starting 2 August, and estimated to cost the...
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