-PTI   The government’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme is innovative and has achieved quite high coverage but faces challenges like uneven implementation across states and “some evidence” of leakage of funds, a new World Bank report says. The study ‘Social Protection for a Changing India’ also says ensuring higher degree of awareness among people about the process of applying for work under the scheme and a strong monitoring and evaluation system...

Rising farm wages, which have a major impact on food prices, may force the government to devise a blueprint in which agricultural work is included under a widened ambit of a government's flagship job surety scheme, a key government official said. "We may need to come up with some sort of a special agreement for wage payment to beneficiaries working on farms since they are privately owned," Ashok Gulati, noted farm...

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is showing better success of creating assets — ponds or roads — in the two Left ruled states. BJP-ruled states  Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are laggards, but some Congress states such as Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, too, are at the bottom. “Real successes of MGNREGA is when land resources are regenerated letting lakhs of marginal farmers go back to agriculture — bringing down the need...

Twelve Gram Panchayats from seven states have been selected for the Award under the Scheme of Awards for Best Performing Gram Panchayats for the year 2009-10. These are Khairwahi (Dondi Block) and Machandur (Durg Block) from Durg District of Chhattisgarh; Kalauna (Dadwali Block) from Sirsa Disstrict of Haryana; Nedumkandam (Nedumkandam Block) from Idduki and Kottukal (Athiyannoor Block) from Thiruvanthapuram districts of Kerala; Pandurna (Mukhed Block) from Nanded district of Maharashtra;...

Thiruvoipati Nandakumar How is better delivery expected by allocating more foodgrains, when the system is not equipped to handle even the current level of allocation? The debate about the proposed national food security act seems to be centred on the magnitude of the allocation of food grains. But the issue is far beyond only foodgrains. It is about improving health, sanitation and nutrition standards so that India’s human development goals can be...