It will not work at cross purposes with the Abhijit Sen committee: Ashwani Kumar In a bid to address the rising concerns, within and outside Parliament, over the latest poverty estimates released by the Planning Commission, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday declared that a technical group would be put in place to come up a new methodology to capture the incidence of poverty. Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a...

In an interview with Mint in February, Jairam Ramesh, minister of rural development, was asked whether the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) would be rolled back in the upcoming budget as part of a plan to reduce the fiscal deficit. “How can we roll back a demand-driven programme?” Ramesh had replied. But that is precisely what seems to have happened. On Friday, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced a...

As much as 5.3 per cent of the Union Budget for 2012-13 is Budget for Children (BfC) with an increase of 0.3 per cent since 2011-12. This must be set against the inflation rate of 6.6 per cent. The increase can be attributed to the increased allocation in the development sector by 66.2 per cent and health by 29.7 per cent. However, as always, the share of the protection sector remains...

The Centre on Saturday asserted that adequate funds were available during the2012-13 financial year to meet job demands by below poverty line (BPL) households under the Mahatma Gandhi NREGS. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh underlined that he has recommended reallocation of funds for rural development, especially fordrinking water and sanitation projects, to ensure inclusive growth and reflect the percolation of the high growth rate to the rural side. At the...

The Economic Survey 2011-12 showcases the dividends of economic liberalisation started by the ruling party. But admits: growth is not possible without agriculture During the last financial year there were talks of the Indian economy finally decoupling from agriculture thus monsoon. The Economic Survey of 2011-12 disagrees with that. The survey has re-emphasised that whatever economic growth happened in the last fiscal it was due to agricultural growth. India recorded the...