Rajasthan's Jatawali village hosts a debate on census showing how rural India badly needs state help. An old couple in Jatavali village in Choumu tehsil of Jaipur were having an early lunch at noon with their daughter. The man had a roti and a large chunk of crumpled baati (baked wheat balls) and a fairly large bowl of dal. He was making little cakes of baati, dipping them in the dal...

Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has decided to enhance the daily wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Nrega) to Rs 121 from the existing Rs 100. The job card holders who have completed the existing maximum limit of 100 days of employment under Nrega A will also now be employed for an additional 25 days. A decision to this effect was taken by Reddy at a review meeting. Crop...

Union rural development and panchayati raj minister C P Joshi on Wednesday suggested that the re c o rd s maintained under the M a h at m a Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme could be used to identify the poor to prepare the BPL census 2011. Emphasising the need for a one-dimensional reference for surveying the BPL families, Joshi said that identifying the ‘real’ poor was getting tougher in...

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has found several inadequacies in the implementation of the Swarnajayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana (self-employment scheme) by the State government, including inadequate coverage of the SC/ST and disabled beneficiaries and ineffective monitoring mechanism. The report of the CAG (Panchayat Raj institutions) - 2009, tabled in the Assembly on Tuesday, points out that non-utilisation of grants on time resulted in the loss of assistance to...

Union Rural Development Minister C P Joshi on Saturday said the Gujarat government has not been able to implement the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Grantee Act schemes up to the mark. Joshi, who is also the president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, was in Vadodara to watch the Ranji Trophy tie between Rajasthan and Vadodara. “There have been complaints from Gujarat about the implementation of the NREGA schemes and during the...