-The Telegraph New Delhi: The just released socio-economic and caste census data show more than 1.8 lakh manual scavengers in the country at a time virtually every state government has been denying their existence. Hundreds if not thousands in almost every state, including 2,500 in Bengal, told the surveyors they manually remove untreated human excreta from dry toilets, railway tracks and sewers - a practice banned by Parliament 22 years ago. State...
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92% rural homes run on less than Rs 10,000 per month -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Giving a more storied picture of rural India, the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) released on Friday says that a staggering 92% of rural households reported their maximum income below Rs 10,000 per month. Nearly three quarters of all rural household said that the income of the highest earning member was Rs 5,000 or less. The SECC was conducted during 2011-12 with some states completing it...
More »Facing drought, Telangana shifts focus to dry crops -Bappa Majumdar
-The Times of India HYDERABAD: In a major policy shift that could shape the future of agriculture in Telangana, the government on Wednesday said it was getting ready to grow dry crops such as ragi and bajra in view of an impending drought after the killer heat wave in the region. Unseasonal rains in MarchApril had damaged Rabi crops in 75,000 hectares across nine districts of the state, forcing the government to...
More »Housing plan: BPL out, caste census in -Basant Kumar Mohanty
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre plans to change the criteria for selecting the beneficiaries of its rural housing scheme for the poor, dropping the earlier poverty-list-based method for one that uses a points system based on the ongoing caste census. The government believes the proposed reform will achieve better targeting by including deserving families left out of the below-poverty-line (BPL) list, but critics feel it would leave a huge number of...
More »Too early to say deficit monsoon to hit rural lending -Abhijit Lele
-Business Standard A clear picture is likely to emerge only towards the end of June Mumbai: Rural distress owing to heavy unseasonal rains in March and the prospects of less-than-normal monsoon have made bankers “a cautious lot” at the start of this financial year. However, it is too early to conclude that the impact of rains, or the lack of it, would be bad. According to public sector bank executives, the assessment for...
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