-The Telegraph   Officials are set to propose to the Narendra Modi government that the UPA's blockbuster rural job scheme be restricted to select districts as the decision in 2008 to extend it to all districts was not required. The officials of the rural development ministry are expected to tell the new minister that the funds allocated for the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) were not adequate for national...

-The Indian Express   MGNREGA is beset with failures of planning, execution, monitoring and accountability. This election season, we have seen the BJP seeking the people's mandate on the slogan "sab ka saath, sab ka vikas". The Congress harps primarily on a "we gave you" list. The first in this list is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). The 11th Five Year Plan recognised that 30 crore people lived below the...

-The Indian Express   Available data suggests the programme has been effective in reducing rural poverty and gender discrimination Nirmala Sitharaman's misinformation (‘How not to run a programme', IE, May 9) on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which employs one in every four Indian rural households every year, is disappointing. Consider these facts. For the first time in over two decades, the increase in rural consumption (a proxy indicator...

-Down to Earth   People of West Bengal's Sunderbans region are setting up grain banks to safeguard against food crisis Subedan Bibi's mud hut is a few metres from the banks of the Bakchara river, a distributary of the Hugli in Sunderbans region of South 24 Parganas. When the river is in spate she and most others of Goyadham village move to the main market in the nearby block. "Floods and storms destroy...

-The Financial Express   In what could be a big question mark on the world's largest jobs scheme. In what could be a big question mark on the world's largest jobs scheme, the number of people who availed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) fell 8.4% year-on-year in 2013-14, reports Raj Kumar Ray in New Delhi. Also, only a tenth of the people enrolled got the promised 100 days of...