-Livemint.com Report says only 10.1% of the total households that had been provided employment had been able to complete 100 days of work as stipulated by the MGNREGA New Delhi: The rural job guarantee programme provided only 49 days of work on an average across the country in 2015-16 when drought in several states affected farm output and crimped income. Rural development minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, though, highlighted this number as a...

-The Financial Express The rural development ministry has identified unrealistic planning at gram panchayat level, lack of quality assets created, inadequate capacity of functionaries, inadequate technical staff, lack of monitoring and delay in wage payment, as factors adversely impacting the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The report on performance, initiatives and strategies (FY15-16 and FY16-17) for MGNREGA released by the rural development ministry also identified issues...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Astonished’ RSS-backed farmers’ body seeks immediate roll-back New Delhi: The Centre’s nod for 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in trading of food products with “no riders”, has not only raised the hackles of the Food Processing Ministry, which has been pushing for 15 per cent mandatory investment in creation of back-end infrastructure to reduce wastage and create jobs, but has also irked farmers organisations, such as...

-Livemint.com Delays in payment and indifferent implementation, among other reasons, have blunted the programme’s effectiveness Procedural lapses have marred the implementation of the state-funded job guarantee programme aimed at alleviating RURAL DISTRESS in India, according to a review of the scheme in eight states by the rural development ministry. While delays in disbursal of funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have held up wage payments in Madhya...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A month has gone by since the Supreme Court issued directions to tackle drought but it is "business as usual" for the Centre and the affected states, civil society organisations have said. Worse, government intervention is even less than what it used to be in colonial times, they said. A quarter of the country is drought-hit at present. On May 11, the apex court had pronounced the Centre guilty...