-The Telegraph The finance ministry has decided to shave Rs 3,000 crore, or about nine per cent, off the rural job guarantee scheme's budget allocation, government sources told The Telegraph. The move comes at a time the NDA government has been trying to assuage the fears of the Opposition and social activists that it plans to dilute the programme, introduced by the UPA government. This year's budget allocation for the programme was Rs...
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Minister: Govt. won’t restrict MGNREGA to a few blocks -Anumeha Yadav
-The Hindu "Rs. 40,000-crore component is for the whole country" The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is not going to restrict the implementation of MGNREGA to a few pocket of the country, the new Minister for Rural Development Chaudhary Birendra Singh, said on Tuesday. Mr. Singh was responding to questions over whether the government was planning to restrict the scheme's implementation to only tribal and poor areas - 2500 blocks of all States -...
More »Wrong numbers: Attack on NREGA is misleading
-The Times of India Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, hereafter BP, have argued for phasing out the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in favour of cash transfers ("Rural Inefficiency Act", ToI, 23 October). It's surprising-and amusing-that two eminent economists have chosen to make a case based on prior beliefs and some sophomoric wordplay ('mis'leading economists), rather than on the available evidence. A survey by one of us of the empirical literature...
More »Re-framing the MGNREGA debate -Yamini Aiyar
-The Hindu Reports that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government intends to radically restructure the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have re-ignited public discussion on the scheme. Since its launch, debate on MGNREGA has been synonymous with ideological contestations on the role of the state and its welfare functions. Inevitably, the contours of the debate have been shrill, leaving little space for an evidence-based discussion on the...
More »How to reform and how not to -Mihir Shah
-The Hindu Every effort needs to be made to reform MGNREGA, as it has been both a major success and a huge failure. The best way for this is to study carefully the conditions that made it a success and also to undertake a diagnostics of its failures An impression has gained ground in recent weeks that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre is inimical to the Mahatma Gandhi...
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