The Finance Ministry has turned down a proposal for doubling the number of employment days guaranteed to below poverty line people under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The Rural Development Ministry had proposed doubling the minimum days for employment from 100 to 200 days and also called for linking the wage rate to the annual inflation rate. “The Ministry had written to us asking for funds to...

Earlier this week, India's opposition parties came together in a rare show of unity to take to the streets in cities across the country. They protested against the government's recent decision to raise fuel prices after it scrapped its subsidy of petrol prices in an effort to cut the budget deficit. Supporters of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party joined hands with their ideological rivals among the Communists to paralyse normal life in...

Government has proposed to launch an urban employment guarantee scheme on the lines of NREGA and give statutory sanctions to minimum wages. The proposal, which focuses on generating employment and enhancing employability among less advantaged, is part of the short-term strategies and targets of the government contained in the first Annual Report to the People on Employment. At present, states are under no obligation to implement revision of minimum wages...

In April, India’s Planning Commission accepted recommendations put forth by the so-called Tendulkar Committee on a new poverty headcount for the country. Constituted by the Planning Commission under economist Suresh D Tendulkar, the committee, after four years and a new methodology, arrived at a new figure for the number of Indians living below the poverty line: 37.2 percent, ten points higher than the previous official figure. With the government’s subsequent...

In a move expected to boost rural incomes but which will also impact retail prices, the government is set to raise minimum support price for the kharif season's rice crop from Rs 950 to Rs 1,050 a quintal while MSP for pulses is set to jump by between Rs 400-500. The rise in procurement price of pulses is seen as a significant bid to encourage cultivation of foodgrains that are...