MGNREGA is certainly a good idea. But it can’t be allowed to play havoc with farming operations by weaning away Labourers during peak season RURAL DEVELOPMENT Minister Jairam Ramesh recently rubbished the need for freezing the flagship rural job scheme MGNREGA during peak agricultural season. Dismissing the possibility, Ramesh had said: “The matter has been examined by the Mihir Shah Committee and rejected.” Knowing that Mihir Shah’s entry into Planning Commission...
More »SEARCH RESULT
A tribal haadi devoid of facilities at Siddapura
-The Deccan Herald Here drinking water too is a luxury Diddalli is a small hamlet in Channayanakote Gram Panchayat limits, devoid of basic infrastructure facilities. The Labourers who planted teak wood trees under Neduthopu yojana of the forest department in Devamacchi forest in 1972, were shifted to Nagapura and Channayanakote in 1982. The forest department had earmarked two acre land for the Labourers to settle down. However, Diddalli does not boast of anything...
More »Come April, rural job scheme workers to get more wages
-The Hindu Business Line MNREGA Act may be amended to end present disparity From April 1, wage rates under the UPA's flagship MGNREGA will be revised upwards across the country. The wages are now linked to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labour (CPI-AL). A notification to this effect is being issued for the period April 1 to March 31, 2013, the Rural Development Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, informed the Lok Sabha on...
More »Poverty line: Usefulness of poverty data-S Mahendra Dev
The purpose of this piece is not to defend the Planning Commission on poverty figures but to indicate that the methodologies have evolved over time after considerable research and they are useful for policy purposes if not for linking with entitlement programmes (some of us have written earlier that the poor and vulnerable are more numerous than the commission's poverty figures and these should be delinked from entitlement programmes). The commission...
More »The Rs 28 Diet Plan-Anuradha Raman
Trying—and failing—to live on the govt’s definition of ‘not poor’ Dietetics Of Poverty Three cups of tea, adding up to about 150 calories Two slices of bread (100 calories) Two pieces of kulcha with chhole (about 425 calories) Bread and tea hardly contain any nutrients. Milk may provide some calcium. Near-starvation diets, with hardly any vitamins or minerals, can lead to a breakdown of muscles and weight loss over a...
More »