In Uttar Pradesh's most impoverished region, Bundelkhand, government officials feed off not just the living but also the dead. Headlines Today has exposed how corrupt officials exploit the grieving families of farmers, who have committed suicide. In a visit to Bundelkhand in 2008, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi repeated a phrase borrowed from his father Rajiv Gandhi: "Out of 100 paise, only 15 paise reaches the poor". While travelling through this dustbowl...
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'Only 25% families got job under MGNREGS in UP' by Arvind Singh Bisht
The mid-term appraisal of the rural development programmes during the ongoing 11th Five-Year Plan points out several holes in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Uttar Pradesh. This not only reaffirms the public perception of poor performance of UP, but also sets aside the defence put up against scathing criticism of her government by chief minister Mayawati time and again. The development has come...
More »Farmers of Bundelkhand get govt relief cheques for Rs 10 from state govt by Swati Mathur
When Sushil Kumar heard that the government was about to offer drought-hit farmers compensation in the form of monetary relief, his hopes rose. Production may have been poor, but all was not lost. With the compensation amount he would get, Kumar thought he would buy better seeds to sow for the next cropping season. And if there was still any extra left, he may even consider buying a thresher. That...
More »Spurt in farmer suicides in Bundelkhand by Swati Mathur
Everything is in short supply here, especially hope. There was a flicker of it, though, when on April 30 Prime Minister Manmohan Singhcame here with Rahul Gandhi. Maybe the people were expecting a miracle, an end to the misery created by season after season of bad crops and the resultant rising debt. Their hope proved to be short-lived. Since then, nine farmers have killed themselves in Banda district alone, the...
More »Poor NREGA implementation in Bundelkhand says audit survey by Man Mohan Rai
Despite the hype over the NREGA scheme , a survey has found out that about 52 per cent of the poor and needy households in the backward region of Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh did not get a single day of NREGS employment during the last year. The average actual NREGA employment provided to per needy household during the previous 12 months was about 21 days in Chitrakoot district, 19 days in...
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