-Business Standard Also for other programme impacting the non-urban economy, in the wake of two years of partial drought The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) seems likely to get its highest budgetary allocation since its launch a decade before. This allocation for 2016-17 could cross the previous highs of Rs 40,100 crore in the 2010-11 Budget and Rs 40,000 crore in 2011-12, by then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. Actual spending...

-The Hindu NAGERCOIL (Madurai): A nation-wide rally to eradicate manual scavenging was flagged off in Kanyakumari on Sunday. The 125-day rally was organised by the Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA) and flagged off by its national convener Bezawada Wilson in front of Gandhi Mandapam in Kanyakumari. Addressing before flagging off the rally, Mr. Wilson said that the nation-wide bus yatra began in Dibrugarh city in Assam on December 10 and would culminate in Delhi...

-The Indian Express A renewed funding squeeze may undermine MGNREGA’s recent revival, fear civil society activists. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, may have staged a revival in the last two quarters after showing a declining trend in person-days generation during the first year of the Narendra Modi government. But the turnaround could well be temporary,...

-Down to Earth The rural development ministry had recently demanded an additional allocation of Rs 5,000 crore to maintain the momentum of MGNREGA Civil society has supported the demand made by the Union Ministry of Rural Development to the Ministry of Finance to provide Rs 5,000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGS). Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the United Progressive Alliance’s employment generation flagship scheme,...

-The Indian Express The seeming revival over the last two quarters reverses the trend of declining employment under MGNREGA seen during the first year of the Modi government. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship welfare programme of the previous UPA government, appears to be staging a revival of sorts. And this turnaround is being attributed mainly to better monitoring by the Centre and timely release of funds. The July-September...