Taking note of the depleting water table across the district, Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjeet Singh has asked local officers to identify water bodies in the district which can be revived to recharge ground water. The MP said: Under the Integrated Water Management programme, the water bodies can be saved from vanishing. Singh, also the chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, reviewed the progress of work under central and state government sponsored...

The annual report (2009-2010) of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which was tabled in the state Assembly on Friday, stated that individuals benefited from arecanut plantations in Meghalaya after availing the scheme. “Most of the village employment councils have taken up arecanut plantation projects. However, there are rare cases of arecanut plantations on community land and are mostly carried out on individual lands,” said the social audit,...

“Efforts of Empowered Committee set up to monitor the works ineffective” The third report of the Shunglu Committee on “City Infrastructure,” which has been submitted to the Prime Minister and “is being examined,” has severely indicted the Delhi government for its handling of the works and also noted that the efforts of the Empowered Committee, constituted to overlook them, were also “by and large ineffective.” It said while Rs.254 crore in ‘undue...

The efficacy of implementing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the district is questionable. People of Dasmantpur block who were employed under the Act three to four years ago are yet to get their due payment. Sixty labourers of Kaliambo village under Dasmantpur block were engaged in a field channel work under the MGNREGA in 2008. The estimated cost of the project was Rs 8 lakh and...

Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods, a new UN report* shows. Based on an extensive review of the recent scientific literature, the study calls for a fundamental shift towards agroecology as a way to boost food production and improve the situation of the poorest. “To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques...