-The Indian Express The scheme should be refocused towards creating durable assets in agriculture. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has a significant influence on agricultural operations and cultivation costs. If its present focus on community works can be reoriented to proactively promote improvements on the landholdings of small and marginal farmers through the creation of durable assets, it will be beneficial for agricultural productivity and incomes. Critics say that...

-The Indian Express In her letter to Gadkari, Raje said that some issues in the Act need a rethink. Reopening the debate over the UPA's flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has asked the Centre why it cannot be delivered as a scheme. "It is a moot issue why rural employment should be guaranteed by an Act, and why such employment cannot be delivered, or...

-The Financial Express MGNREGA must be tweaked in implementation, not design. Before his tragic demise, the Union minister for rural development, Gopinath Munde, gave a clear indication of the new government's priorities on MGNREGA. Both these priorities are vital: using the programme for the creation of productive assets to combat drought and poverty and ensuring timely payment of wages. More than two decades of liberalisation and high economic growth have left India...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is likely to make it mandatory that 60% of work undertaken in a district under the job guarantee scheme- MGNREGA- should be linked to agriculture. The rural development ministry will incorporate the mandatory clause in Schedule-1 of the MGNREGA so that every state has to follow the norms designed to give a fillip to agriculture through labour-intensive work under the job scheme. RD secretary...

-Down to Earth   Ministry of panchayati raj plans to develop model panchayats in different states through integrated development President Pranab Mukherjee's address to parliamentarians on Monday and the brain-storming sessions carried out by the new prime minister, Narendra Modi, with officials of different ministries indicate changes in the way rural development schemes will be implemented in the country. Each department in the rural development ministry has organised workshops with states to evolve the...