-Deccan Chronicle Under the stewardship of Union rural development minister Nitin Gadkari, things are looking far from good for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the 2005 law passed with cross-party support under UPA-1 that came to be hailed as the world's largest rural job guarantee scheme although, at home, some fair criticisms were also levelled at the way the project worked on the ground. The critics pointed to...

-The Hindustan Times If the news reports doing the rounds are to be believed, the NDA is planning to further dilute the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the country's single-largest flagship programme that has a budget of Rs. 34,000 crore for 2014-15. While most governments when they come to power do tinker with schemes launched by their predecessors - the MGNREGA was the UPA's pet scheme - this...

-The Financial Express The proposed MGNREGA changes can help plug the leakages and enhance agriculture productivity There is good news about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme. Recent press reports reveal that the rural development minister, Nitin Gadkari, has instructed lowering of the mandatory share for unskilled wages in total expenditure from the current 60% to 51%. He has also directed, quite rightly, that 50% of the expenditure be...

-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...

-The Business Standard Alarm bells on rural jobs guarantee law   A group of around 30 economists from India and abroad have written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him to ensure there is no dilution or restriction of the provisions of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). They have argued the scheme has wide-ranging social benefits, beside creation of productive assets. They have said corruption was and remains...