-The Times of India   Social workers and tribal leaders Several hundred tribal families who are going to be displaced by the Kalu, Susari, Shai and Balganga dams in Murbad, Dahanu, Thane and Raigarh to provide water for Mumbai in the future protested at the Gates of the MMRDA at Bandra East on Tuesday. The dams are being built by the Konkan Irrigation Department and are financed by the MMRDA met MMRDA...

Punctuality Audit ordered by the Chief Secretary of the Delhi government last year opened the Pandora’s Box on poor attendance records of government officials. Documents obtained under an RTI filed by Pratidhi show that nodal departments had large numbers of their staff members missing, on most surprise checks. Chief secretary P K Tripathi had ordered the Audit last June after writing to heads of all departments that they must conduct at...

The coal ministry has told the national Auditor that its observations about “windfall gains” to private and state-run entities as a result of allocation of coal blocks without auction were “fallacious and erroneous”.   The ministry has rejected the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG)’s observation that due process was not followed in allocating blocks, and insisted that a “fair and transparent” system was followed, and decisions taken after intense scrutiny and extensive...

-The Business Standard Searching for independent assessments of govt work The rural development ministry recently proposed “independent, real-time evaluation” of the government’s flagship social welfare and development programmes, a suggestion that deserves attention not just for its pros, but also for its cons. It is true that given the explosive growth in social sector spending, effective monitoring and evaluation are ever more important. The constant hum of charges that extra money is...

-The Times of India   In a bid to induce a fresh life into the ailing health services delivery system in Uttar Pradesh, the World Bank has signed a $152 million deal with the Central and UP governments. The funds will be used to finance the government's efforts to improve the efficiency, quality, and accountability of health services in the state. The project, called the Uttar Pradesh Health Systems Strengthening Project (UPHSSP) for...