Salaries of MPs, MLAs and bureaucrats have seen huge hikes recently but for workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), wages have remained static ever since the scheme was launched five years ago. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot recently announced a Diwali bonus for the government employees in the state. "For Diwali we have decided to give bonus equal to 30 days salary. This will cost us Rs. 223 crore...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Total Matching Records found : 4197
MNREGA workers threaten to observe “Black Diwali”
The hopes of an early compliance to their demand of payment of minimum wages receding, the MNREGA workers, who are on an indefinite dharna here, on Saturday threatened to observe a “Black Diwali” this season. The dharna, convened by the Suchana Evum Rogar Ka Adhikar Abhiyan, on its 29th day was attended by over 2,000 persons from 22 districts of Rajasthan. The workers took out a rally in the evening demanding...
More »Power thefts cost India Rs 45k crore in 2009-'10 by Chittaranjan Tembhekar
India's power revolution seems to have run out of steam due to transmission and distribution losses. The country is losing a huge quota of power to faulty distribution networks and power theft every year. The losses, experts say, are currently 29 %of the total generation, which equals a shocking Rs 45,000 crore in the fiscal year 2009-10 . The drop in losses since 2001 is a negligible 3% . President...
More »Food Security Sans PDS: Universalization Through Targeting? by Smita Gupta
The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser. What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...
More »NAC's recommendations discouraging: Yechury
Terming the recommendations of the National Advisory Council on the proposed Food Security Bill as discouraging, senior leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury on Friday underlined the need for a people's movement to pressure the Manmohan Singh government to go in for a universal public distribution system to ensure food security in the country. Addressing a seminar on food security at the CPI(M) State headquarters here, Mr....
More »
