Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
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India must rescue farmers from Covid-19 shock -Soumya Sarkar
-TheThirdPole.net India’s pandemic-forced lockdown has plunged agriculture into a crisis that needs immediate cash transfers to bail out smallholder farmers preparing for the summer cropping season India’s complete lockdown to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic has upended the agrarian economy of the South Asian nation. It could have a serious impact on farm production in the main summer cropping season, work for which starts in May. Farmers in India are no...
More »MGNREGA allocation is way off the mark to uplift the rural economy & address economic downturn, say Right to Work activists
The Union Budget 2020-21, which was presented by the Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 1st February, 2020 has failed to impress civil society activists and farmers' rights groups (click here and here). Through their press releases and notes, members of CSOs were demanding as well as suggesting the Union Government for hiking the budgetary allocation for schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Pradhan Mantri...
More »Civil society presses for an increase in budgetary allocation for MGNREGA in FY 2020-21
-Press release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated 27 January, 2020 As the Indian economy continues to languish, the government ignores the advice given by several noted economists, including that of the most recent Nobel winner Abhijit Banerjee, to improve the functioning of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The economy is facing blow after blow. India has the highest rates of unemployment in the past 45 years and food inflation...
More »Government to peg MGNREGA wages to inflation in bid to hike incomes -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu Stimulus measure to link pay to consumer price index with annual revision. Staring at a slump in rural demand and a slowdown in the rural economy, the Centre plans to inject more money into the UPA’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme by linking wages under the Act to an updated inflation index, which will be revised annually. It hopes this will increase wages, thus increasing...
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