Five years ago, the Prime Minister launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), calling it the single-largest initiative of the government of India for a planned development of our cities. This unique, Rs 50,000-crore (subsequently enhanced to Rs 66,000 crore) programme to be implemented over a seven years from 2005 to 2012 focuses mainly on 65 mission cities with provision kept also for other small towns. While the...

Block vehicular and railway traffic across Punjab, demand relaxation of paddy procurement norms Various factions of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and organisations of landless labourers blocked the railway traffic at Moga and ten other locations in Punjab on Friday. They also halted the vehicular traffic on many highways, demanding relaxation in the procurement norms of paddy. The protesters claimed that adverse weather conditions had affected the quality of grains, and said...

The subsidy-driven development model of Punjab is one of the reasons why state is the worst performer in the country on economic equality front measured through Gini co-efficient. Not only this, revenue collection is the lowest in the country at 6.86% as against a national average of 10-12%. Subsidy is going to only the rich with peasants being pushed out of agriculture. It has come to focus as its reduction is...

The decision to defer cotton export registration by one month – from October 1 to November 1 – may help the textile companies in the short term because of sufficient availability, but there are concerns on how long that would last. Arrivals of cotton are uncertain across India with farmers apprehensive about the yield due to inclement weather. The early varieties of cotton from Punjab and Haryana have also been affected...

Flaying the Punjab government for its “poor performance in the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and other welfare schemes, Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayats P C Joshi said: “By doing so, the Punjab government is denying its poor their due.” In Ludhiana to preside over a meeting of the district-level vigilance and monitoring committee, Joshi said: “Punjab fares even lower than my district, Bhilwara,...