Matter begins: What is the impact of the National Rural Employment Guarentee Act on rural wages? That is the question that the pundits are asking today. It's a query which feeds into a larger question. Six years have passed since NREGA became a legal reality. What is its village-level impact? It's a complex question to answer. NREGA undertakes to provide employment to anyone who asks for it. Which makes it...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Total Matching Records found : 155
Cash Transfers as the Silver Bullet for Poverty Reduction: A Sceptical Note by Jayati Ghosh
The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...
More »Can Centre fix NREGS wages in isolation? by M Rajshekhar
Sometime this month, Justice N Ramamohana Rao of the Andhra Pradesh High Court will deliver a verdict that will directly impact earnings of the 114 million people who work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the Central government's work guarantee programme. The verdict will also indirectly impact earnings of the 400 million workers and labourers who toil in India's factories and fields for 'minimum wages'. The question Justice Rao...
More »Fund squeeze for flagship schemes
For most schemes, the increases have been nominalThe Union Budget goes eloquent about the virtues of the flagship schemes of the UPA government but Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has kept a tight fist while allocating funds, whether for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) or those under the umbrella of Bharat Nirman.Though the finance minister referred to wages under the 100-day employment programme having being increased after being indexed...
More »Beneficiaries may not get arrears by NJ Nair
Loss due to MGNREGS Wage Revision put at Rs.9.8 crore Revised rate below the rate fixed by the State Centre ignored State's plea for wage parity About 9.8 lakh beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are unlikely to get arrears at the revised minimum wage rate of Rs.150 fixed by the Centre from January 1. The loss on this score has been estimated at about Rs.9.8 crore. A Union Rural...
More »
