-Frontline The problem in rural India is not one of too much credit to poor households that leads to debt waivers that damage bank balance sheets, but one of inadequate access to credit from formal sources. IF Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan is to be believed, efforts to help Indian farmers by providing them with cheap(er) credit and relieving them of an unsustainable debt burden only harms them in the...
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Rural Development Ministry to introduce Mobile Monitoring System in MGNREGA to bring Transparency
-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Rural Development Year end Review -2014-15 The Ministry of Rural Development is likely to introduce Mobile Monitoring System for effective implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, MGNREGA. The Monitoring System will be introduced on a pilot basis to allow real time monitoring of all works, workers attendance and work site measurement. The move is likely to plug leakages in the rural job scheme. Moreover,...
More »Wrong numbers: Attack on NREGA is misleading
-The Times of India Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, hereafter BP, have argued for phasing out the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in favour of cash transfers ("Rural Inefficiency Act", ToI, 23 October). It's surprising-and amusing-that two eminent economists have chosen to make a case based on prior beliefs and some sophomoric wordplay ('mis'leading economists), rather than on the available evidence. A survey by one of us of the empirical literature...
More »Govt may downsize MGNREGA to boost scheme impact on the poor -Chetan Chauhan
-The Hindustan Times For fiscal prudence and better outcome of public expenditure, the Narendra Modi government is likely to downsize some of the social sector schemes, including the rural job guarantee programme, the biggest grosser of the central funds. Finance minister Arun Jaitley had allocated about Rs. 33,351 crore for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) in his budget this July but many believe that the huge expenditure was not...
More »Narendra Modi government takes RTI to another level: All replies to be put online -Aman Sharma
-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: It had been expected to dilute the UPA government's showpiece Right to Information (RTI) Act that had become a scourge of sorts for its ministers and bureaucrats and was even blamed by some as a contributing factor for the policy paralysis during its reign. But the Narendra Modi-led BJP government has done the reverse and taken RTI to quite another level. Starting next month, all replies...
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