Rising farm wages, which have a major impact on food prices, may force the government to devise a blueprint in which agricultural work is included under a widened ambit of a government's flagship job surety scheme, a key government official said. "We may need to come up with some sort of a special agreement for wage payment to beneficiaries working on farms since they are privately owned," Ashok Gulati, noted farm...
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Pawar wants nutrition and food security to go hand-in-hand; takes no stand on GM
India still has a long way to go in achieving food and nutritional security, albeit the country has achieved record production with 5.4% growth in agriculture and allied sector. This was corroborated by Sharad Pawar, minister of agriculture and food processing, while addressing the National Conference on Agriculture for Kharif Campaign-2011 in New Delhi recently. "Record production with 235.88 Mt of foodgrains in 2010-2011 should not lead to complacency as we...
More »India contemplates tapping carbon credit from agriculture
India is trying to build a case to include agriculture in an estimated global market of $200-billion for carbon credit from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). "We are pressing for carbon credit from agriculture. The Planning Commission on principal accepted the idea in September 2010," NCCSD executive chairman Kirit N Shelat said on the sidelines of a national conference on agriculture and climate change organised by South Asia Forum for Environment...
More »CAG pulls up govt over quality of PDS ration by Dinesh Manhotra
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has pulled up the state government for its failure to ensure the supply of quality ration to the people. In its annual report, the CAG said there was no testing laboratory or trained manpower for conducting quality inspection of the foodgrains supplied through the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the state. “The PDS (Control) Order, 2001, envisages that the representatives of the Consumer Affairs...
More »Funds delay may derail MGNREGS by NJ Nair
Union Rural Development Ministry allegedly delaying funds for State With the Union Rural Development Ministry delaying funds, implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is likely to be derailed in the State. But for the intervention of the State government, the works taken up under the scheme would have come to a halt in Alappuzha district. With new funds yet to come and the district exhausting the Rs.71...
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