New Delhi : Land belonging to Scheduled Castes and/or Scheduled Tribes will be the first to be earmarked for works under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and once this is saturated, only then land belonging to small and marginal farmers will be taken up. These are the amended guidelines issued by the Rural Development Ministry after protests that expansion of works under NREGA would undermine its benefits to Dalits....
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DEBATE: Is NREGS II a product of a complacent UPA II?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is confident that the NREGS is his best bet to offset the drought but many grassroots activists are unsure of the scheme’s effectiveness, especially after some recent amendments. While the drought has spread to 246 districts, a heated debate rages on the poor peoples’ entitlements versus rural asset formation, even though in theory the two positions appear complementary. 14 organisations throughout the country are up in arms...
More »A better rural programme
The issue is not monitoring, but the administrative structure itself, at the district and village levels The Planning Commission has recently put out the results of an evaluation conducted by it on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), after a survey of 20 districts. This is the most comprehensive official evaluation so far, and it makes interesting reading, not just in terms of the performance of the scheme, but...
More »Dalits, the poor and the NREGA
Before tinkering with the NREGA in the name of reforms, the government must ensure that the foundations of the scheme are strengthened. No change should be introduced without a rigorous debate that centrally involves its primary constituents. As the Union Ministry of Rural Development attempts to craft the architecture of what is being referred to as “NREGA 2,” the principles that constitute the basic foundation of the National Rural Employment...
More »Hunger Overview
KEY TRENDS • As per the 2019 Global Hunger Index report, neighbouring countries such as China (GHI score: 6.5; GHI rank: 25), Sri Lanka (GHI score: 17.1; GHI rank: 66), Myanmar (GHI score: 19.8; GHI rank: 69), Nepal (GHI score: 20.8; GHI rank: 73), Bangladesh (GHI score: 25.8; GHI rank: 88) and Pakistan (GHI score: 28.5; GHI rank: 94) have outperformed India (GHI score: 30.3; GHI rank: 102) *13 • As per the 2018 Global Hunger Index report,...
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