-The Hindu VISAKHAPATNAM: It is estimated that crop in 2,300 ha has been damaged. Most of the cane grown in the area is used for making jaggery. Even if some of the cane can be used to make jaggery, the units are in no condition to work as there is no power. Sugarcane, paddy, cashew, casuarina - anything that came in the way of the severe cyclonic storm Hudhud met with the...
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Telling the right reform from the wrong -Pramathesh Ambasta
-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...
More »Making MGNREGA deliver better -Rajiv Kumar
-The Financial Express The proposed MGNREGA changes can help plug the leakages and enhance agriculture productivity There is good news about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme. Recent press reports reveal that the rural development minister, Nitin Gadkari, has instructed lowering of the mandatory share for unskilled wages in total expenditure from the current 60% to 51%. He has also directed, quite rightly, that 50% of the expenditure be...
More »Changes may limit NREGA to only 60 blocks in Rajasthan -Anindo Dey
-The Times of India JAIPUR: The paradox could not be greater. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which had its genesis in the mass movements launched in Rajasthan, is now facing a dilution in its home state. The Union rural development ministry is likely to amend the provisions of MGNREGA, converting it to just a scheme and thereby threatening to rob it of its es sence. In Rajasthan, such an...
More »Toilets on paper -Rukmini S
-The Hindu More than half the households in the country still lack access to sanitation. In its villages, some toilets built under past schemes exist only on paper. In 2019, India will observe the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who gave the clarion call, "Clean up your own mess." But even 67 years after Independence, our cities and towns present a sorry picture replete with mounds of garbage, rotting sewers and...
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