The scheme has reduced rural migration and promoted financial inclusion, but needs to create more durable assets. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) – the only government social welfare scheme named after the other Gandhi, not belonging to Nehru-Gandhi family – has recently completed five years. The performance of the scheme, considered a major pillar of UPA government's strategy of inclusive growth, has been a matter of debate. The...

The yellow rust disease that hit parts of the crucial wheat-producing States in northern India will hit production by about 5 lakh tonnes, informed sources have said. Although the Agriculture Ministry is said to have taken “timely action,” about 3 lakh hectares under wheat was hit by the yellow rust, a fungal disease that affects the leaves of the standing crop by forming yellow stripes that do not allow photosynthesis to...

Distribution of basic food grains and fuel at controlled prices every month through the Public Distribution System (PDS) could be the largest service provided by the Indian State, touching as it does over 65 million families through a network of nearly half a million retail shops. Given that the urban middle class has little stake in the health of the PDS, there have to be some compelling reasons for the...

Cash transfer as substitute for state service provision is a dangerous recipe for callously anti-poor and corrupt governance. THE staggering number of recent articles, papers and books on the virtues of giving cash in place of public services to the poor has created an impression that a sort of epidemic has broken out. Economists, policymakers, bureaucrats and newspaper commentators are all infected by it and are in turn infecting others. The central...

Despite the hype over the NREGA scheme , a survey has found out that about 52 per cent of the poor and needy households in the backward region of Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh did not get a single day of NREGS employment during the last year. The average actual NREGA employment provided to per needy household during the previous 12 months was about 21 days in Chitrakoot district, 19 days in...