The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...

Cash transfers are now suggested by many as a silver bullet for addressing the problems that plague India’s anti-poverty programmes. This article argues instead for evidence-based policy and informed public debate to clarify the place, prospects and problems of cash transfers in India. By drawing on key empirical findings from academic and grey literature across the world an attempt is made to draw attention to three aspects of cash transfers...

Construction related projects in the state are facing a huge problem of labour shortage. Labourers are not available even at higher wages and as a result, ongoing projects, including many realty projects, are progressing at a snail's pace. The labour intensive real estate and infrastructure industry is worth nearly Rs 50,000 crore and depends heavily upon migrant labourers from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar besides Panchmahal and Dahod districts of Gujarat. "Infrastructure...

The state Election Commission will crosscheck its electoral roll data with the database of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) as part of its target of 100 per cent Photo Electoral Roll (PER) in Uttar Pradesh. The details of NREGA beneficiaries and their photographs in the database, wherever available, will be used for updating the PER. The EC recently sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh expressing...

With Mahatma Gandhi NREGA providing rich political dividends and letting  the government stay in course, the UPA-2 is stepping on the gas to multiply the mileage. On June 3, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will launch the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, a massive self-empowerment programme for rural India with focus on women, from a tribal district in Rajasthan, Banswara. But unlike the NREGS providing sustenance to rural India, the NRLM is to make...