As the monsoon rains continue to play truant over much of the country, concerns about the fate of India’s rain-fed agricultural sector this year means that lakhs of farm labourers could be forced to look for other options. Anticipating an increase in demand for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) jobs this season, the Centre has indicated its willingness to sanction additional funds – to the tune...

PATIALA/SANGRUR: Everyone agrees that theNREGA is causing a shortage of agricultural labour. Everyone, that is, except the workers themselves. For the last two years, the "success" of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (commonly referred to as NREGA) in reducing the number of men migrating out of India's poorest states has become something of a truism. In Punjab, this has resulted in dozens of news articles about the shortage...

-The Hindu Business Line VISAKHAPATNAM: Farmers in Visakhapatnam district are being encouraged to rediscover and adopt age-old agricultural practices, give up use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and grow organic crops, according to Mr P. Ramana, district manager of Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture project. He said in an interview that the project, being implemented by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), is meant to support poor farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices...

-The Hindu Technical glitches in the unique identification method make it unreliable in disbursing wages under the employment guarantee scheme   Within a few weeks of “Aadhaar-enabled” payments of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme wages being initiated in Jharkhand, earlier this year, glowing accounts of this experiment started appearing in the national media. Some of them also gave the impression, intentionally or otherwise, that this successful experiment covered most of Jharkhand....

-The Times of India UPA's flagship rural guarantee scheme is performing fitfully in terms of work days, wages and coverage, amply confirming rural development minister Jairam Ramesh's fears that the programme has become a scheme for digging ditches. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee, UPA's outreach to the poor, is not meeting critical parameters and is crying out for reform with questions about the utility a Rs 36,000-crore a year budget...