-IANS There were only 12 days of work per household in West Bengal under the rural jobs scheme MGNREGA as against the national average of 28 days, say NGOs who blame organisational inefficiency and faulty implementation for the situation in the state. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) assures 100 days of work for one member of every rural household in a year. But West Bengal's performance has...

The Smart Card Project is helping nearly 12.7 million poor people in Andhra Pradesh to get timely payment of wages It was conceived as a vehicle to promote financial inclusion by taking banking services to the unbanked poor, harnessing information and communications technology to ensure the benefits of public welfare programmes reach those they are intended for by plugging leakages. The Andhra Pradesh Smart Card Project, launched in 2007, is...

A survey conducted across nine states by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Allahabad University suggests that the much maligned system has revived, prodded by politics, good governance and the apex court. It also found the poor to be averse to cash transfers Kotri is a mid-sized village in Desuri block (Pali district, Rajasthan), about 15 kilometres away from the nearest large bus stand and market place. We walked to...

The government will recast the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, to give it a welfare edge, following criticism that it was disconnected from people's concern over corruption, high food prices and inflation. The attempt will be to make it more responsive to people's needs and increase earnings of the rural poor. The reform attempts to make the scheme truly demand-based, besides addressing issues of fraud, misuse of funds, corruption...

The rural development ministry has proposed several changes in the rural job guarantee programme to ensure timely payment of wages and eradicate graft at a time when the Congress party-led ruling alliance has come under fire for poor governance and its failure to tackle corruption. The ministry has listed nine challenges to the proper functioning of the programme and proposed possible modifications in a note. The challenges include ensuring demand-driven legal...