-The Economic Times I will never make the mistake of discontinuing M(G)NREGA; because it is a living testimony of your failures. After 60 years of Independence you had to make people dig ditches — Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In that March 2015 speech in Parliament, Prime Minister Modi taunted the Congress Party that the rural job guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was required because of the party's...
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Job scheme in decline -Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta
-Frontline.in The increase in the budgetary allocation for the MGNREGA is only marginal. The scheme helped lower the poverty level by 32 per cent between 2004-05 and 2011-12, but government support for it has been declining steadily. In the beginning, economists belonging to the Right and the Left were of the view that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was merely a populist measure. While the former believed...
More »Addressing the root causes of farm distress -Usha Tuteja
-The Financial Express It is expected that the measures announced in the Budget will boost agricultural output and rural incomes It appears that Budget FY17 has not generated enough excitement in media, academics and the masses, including farmers. Currently, farm distress is a serious concern in the country. The livelihood security of the rural population is in peril. Farmers are in dire need of substantial help to come out of the crisis-like...
More »A grassroots revolution -Rob Jenkins
-The Hindu Business Line Ten years on, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act endures because it provides the poor a political voice February 2016 marks a decade since India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) came into force. NREGA is both revolutionary and modest; it promises every rural household one hundred days of employment annually on public-works projects, but the labour is taxing and pays minimum wage, at best. Many charges have...
More »Budget 2016, through a prism of the poor -Brinda Karat
-The Indian Express Gamlina’s response is just one example of how distant this government is from the lives of the poor and how tokenistic its schemes are. Gamlina Soren, an elected panchayat member in Jharkhand, sounded upset. She had been told by a local BJP functionary that gas cylinders were going to be “gifted” to poor women by the Centre but that they must have a BPL card. “But most poor Adivasi...
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