-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...

-PTI   Writing letters is the only option left to him to persuade Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati to order a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in implementation of MgNREGA in the state rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said on Friday. Ramesh, who wrote letters to Uttar Pradesh government, including Mayawati, favouring a CBI inquiry into the matter, said the Centre could not conduct a CBI probe into the matter without the concurrence...

-PTI The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) will now scrutinise all the schemes of Rural Development Ministry and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh said today. Announcing the decision, Ramesh said the two Ministries annually spend Rs 88,000 crore which is the single largest amount of public expenditure other than Defence and it is very important to have CAG audit in the Ministry schemes for ensuring accountability and...

-The Hindustan Times   Rural development Jayant Patil on Tuesday said that implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MgNREGA) should be in the hands of his department instead of the Congress-controlled Water Conservation and Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) department, in the “best interests of the state.” Patil statement comes in the wake of Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh’s missive to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, stating that the implementation...

The Congress rules state and the centre, but money set aside for Rajasthan’s malnourished tribal children does not reach dysfunctional crèches and other urgent needs Three-year-old Bagmati Sahariya lies listlessly on a string cot inside an unlit mud-and-thatched home in Baran district’s Amrod village, 292km south of Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. When her father Janki Lal (36), a daily wage labourer, lifts her on his shoulder, her bony hands and legs dangle...