A Maharashtra district judge is employed under a key central government job scheme meant for the poorest of the poor in Jukkal Mandal of Nizamabad district in Andhra Pradesh. Judge Vijayrao Patel's employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) reflects the rampant corruption in the widely-publicized national job guarantee programme for the village poor. Patel, a Sholapur district judge, has an MNREGS job card (ID no 09011011038) issued...

Bottlenecks at every stage in the implementation of MGNREGA in Atra village in Chhattisgarh are making the villagers disillusioned. “If payment is unreliable, the poorest and the most vulnerable opt out of the system...” On a rainy day in September, Bir Singh Malekar, 45, rues his decision to stay back in Atra village in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district this summer, instead of leaving in search of work. “I usually go to Chennai between...

In yet another embarrassment for the Chandigarh Administration, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has directed it to “put on hold the acquisition of land for IT Park, Phase-III”. In a communication sent to the Administration on Monday evening, the MHA has minced no words in directing the Administration to stop the acquisition process and take prior permission from the ministry for acquisition of proposed projects in the peripheral area...

Administrative sanction for 593 works They include construction of libraries Rural infrastructure in Tirupur district will undergo a moderate transformation if the improvement plans conceptualised by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) at around Rs. 20 crore for the current financial year materialises at the ground level. Official sources told The Hindu that as part of the project, administrative sanction had been accorded to 593 works in 45 panchayats at Rs. 9 crore...

When noted economist Jean Dreze visited Surguja in Chhattisgarh a decade ago, its utterly non-functional Public Distribution System (PDS) looked like especially “designed to fail.” The National Advisory Committee member has written in a recent article that the ration shop owners illegally sold the grain meant for the poor and “hunger haunted the land.” But that was then. The economist was pleasantly shocked to see the transformation this time. “Ten years...