Bharatiya Janata Party MLC Vinod Tawde on Thursday demanded a probe by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into an alleged scam in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in Maharashtra. According to him, hundreds of crores of funds meant for NREGA wages were being pocketed by officials. “In Jawahar and Mokhada areas in Thane, one MGNREGS site reported that wages were paid to workers. But the list included a...

Two weeks after Neyamat Ansari, a close associate of national employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) governing council member Jean Dreze, was beaten to death in Jharkhand, the Centre added on Thursday a new section to the act to force state governments to take action against irregularities in the programme. “If the Centre directs the state government for taking steps for effective implementation of the provisions of the act and the states do...

The International Labour Organisation has done well to include a draft convention on decent work for domestic workers in the agenda for the 100th session of the International Labour Conference, scheduled for June. For centuries the domestic workers have lived along the margins of the international workforce. Well-documented reports by the ILO and other organisations point to the universality of their woes. Entirely informal in nature, domestic work, at its...

To keep control over its flagship scheme ~ the much-hyped Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) ~ and to defeat its non-Congress regimes in various states, the Centre has given itself powers to check releasing funds due to ineffective implementation.   In a six-point instruction to states, the ministry of rural development has said that audit teams and media reports have revealed “anomalies” in the implementation of the MGNREGA. “If the...

Releasing the election manifesto here on Wednesday, West Bengal Left Front Committee Chairman Biman Bose said the eighth Left Front government will focus on “agriculture, industry, peace, democracy and progress,” in the State if it returns to power. Listing the objectives of the Front in the coming five years, the manifesto states that it wants to ensure that West Bengal is one of the top-ranked States on the three parameters of...