-Economic and Political Weekly The runaway growth in states of subsidised solar pumps, which provide quality energy at near-zero marginal cost, can pose a bigger threat of groundwater over-exploitation than free power has done so far. The best way to meet this threat is by paying farmers to "grow" solar power as a remunerative cash crop. Doing so can reduce pressure on aquifers, cut the subsidy burden on electricity companies, reduce...
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Activists and concerned citizens oppose budget cuts in social sector
-Press Release from Centre for Budget Analysis (CBGA) and Jan Awaaz New Delhi, 29 November 2014: There have been a number of media reports recently around possible cuts in Union Budget allocations for the current fiscal 2014-15 in case of social sector programmes, i.e. reductions in allocations in the Revised Estimates (RE) for 2014-15 as compared to the Budget Estimates (BE) that were made in July this year. This issue deserves...
More »Why Jharkhand Has Not Paid NREGA Wages in Months -Alok Pandey and Haribansh Sharma
-NDTV Ranchi: Launched in 2005 by the UPA government, the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act was intended to help the poor by promising 100 days of work a year to rural households at a pre-determined minimum wage rate. In the last decade, there has been mixed opinion on the success of the initiative. But in the last few months, the central government has said it has plans to modify...
More »Not curtailing rural job scheme: Government
-IANS New Delhi: The government is not trying to curtail MNREGA and the number of blocks under the act have not been reduced, Rural Development Minister Birender Singh told parliament Thursday. The minister was responding to a calling attention motion in the Rajya Sabha by Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja and others, criticising the move of the government to introduce changes in the rural employment scheme by reducing the...
More »Job scheme budget-cut plan sparks alarm -Basant Kumar Mohanty
-The Telegraph The finance ministry has decided to shave Rs 3,000 crore, or about nine per cent, off the rural job guarantee scheme's budget allocation, government sources told The Telegraph. The move comes at a time the NDA government has been trying to assuage the fears of the Opposition and social activists that it plans to dilute the programme, introduced by the UPA government. This year's budget allocation for the programme was Rs...
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