The controversy over the refusal of Ministry of Rural Development to pay minimum wages under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA is now bothering even the Congress-ruled States including Andhra Pradesh which has sought the intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K. Rosaiah has been forced to write to the Prime Minister in the wake of the MORD not complying with the orders of the A.P. High Court suspending the...
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The Wages of Discontent by Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey
The Union government is reneging on its legal obligation to pay minimum wages, even to the most deprived sections of the population, in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. If anyone wants to study the capacity of India's policymakers to turn a progressive piece of legislation upside down, the wage policy under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a good place to...
More »NAC focus back on job scheme, asks rural ministry for details by Ruhi Tewari
Along with the proposed food security legislation and the communal violence Bill that have been its focus until now, the reconstituted National Advisory Council (NAC) is beginning to focus again on the government’s marquee rural job guarantee scheme as well. The ministry of rural development has been told to make a presentation on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to a working group of the NAC on Friday,...
More »Govt to use GIS in NREGA work by Amit Agnihotri
In order to decentralise the planning, implementation and monitoring processes of the MGNREGA works, the government is planning a national strategic framework using the geographical information system (GIS). The move will help the rural development ministry bring in greater transparency and accountability in the implementation of the act as real time data would be available to it. The use of GIS will help capture existing assets (created under MGNREGA) with their location,...
More »Hope floats in great flood by Pankaj Jaiswal
Bhaggu, 65, says he can trace his memory back to when he was five. And he remembers the paradox that’s taunted him since: Of his village — Sohras, in northern Uttar Pradesh — being flooded every year and him having no water to drink. “They (government) distribute food, tarpaulin, kerosene, matchboxes but never made any arrangement for water,” says Bhaggu, a farm worker who goes by one name. “I think no...
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