-The Hindu Business Line Facing criticism for rising prices, the Modi Government has blamed public expenditure on schemes such as MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National rural Employment Guarantee Act) for fuelling food inflation. Curiously, the BJP wants the job scheme to continue, with the focus mainly on agriculture. According to the agenda note circulated for Friday's Conference of State Food Ministers with the Centre, food inflation is caused by both demand and supply...
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Vasundhara reopens debate, asks Centre: Why must NREG be law, not scheme? -Seema Chishti
-The Indian Express In her letter to Gadkari, Raje said that some issues in the Act need a rethink. Reopening the debate over the UPA's flagship Mahatma Gandhi National rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has asked the Centre why it cannot be delivered as a scheme. "It is a moot issue why rural employment should be guaranteed by an Act, and why such employment cannot be delivered, or...
More »The Planning Commission, in practice -Mihir Shah
-The Indian Express Despite the bureaucratic mindset, there are also tremendous positive effects. As speculation mounts by the day that the Modi government is thinking of winding up the Planning Commission, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the relevance of the institution in the context of a rapidly changing Indian economy and society. One way of classifying institutions is in terms of the balance between their potential positive power (PPP) and...
More »Estimating rural Housing Shortage -Arjun Kumar
-Economic and Political Weekly The working group on rural housing for the Twelfth Five-Year Plan estimated the rural housing shortage in India to be 43.13 million in 2012. Using the latest data sets - Census 2011 and the National Sample Survey housing condition round for 2008-09 - and the improved methodology used by the technical group on urban housing shortage, this paper re-estimates the rural shortage to be 62.01 million in...
More »Messing with a good thing -Pramathesh Ambasta
-The Financial Express MGNREGA must be tweaked in implementation, not design. Before his tragic demise, the Union minister for rural development, Gopinath Munde, gave a clear indication of the new government's priorities on MGNREGA. Both these priorities are vital: using the programme for the creation of productive assets to combat drought and poverty and ensuring timely payment of wages. More than two decades of liberalisation and high economic growth have left India...
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