This will speed up payment of wages under employment guarantee scheme In a major step to alleviate delays in wage payments under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday launched an “e-Shakti Financial Inclusion” scheme – the first of its kind in the country. The scheme aims at providing about three crore villagers with ‘e-Shakti' biometric smart cards, with the Central Bank of...

The implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is plagu-ed by a series of lapses including financial misappropriation worth several crores of rupees and graft leading to booking of cases against officials including mandal parishad development officers and suspension of several technical and field staff in Godavari districts. In East Godavari, a whopping amount of Rs 4.06 crores were found misappropriated during social audit being held at the village...

It's a Rs 50,000 crore annual business but those at the bottom of the supply chain -- mostly tribals -- make a mere Rs 4,000 crore out of it. The extraction of non-timber forest produce -- tuburs, leaves, seeds, plants and roots, besides other products from forest -- could soon become a bigger money-spinner for tribals. The government has set up a committee, which in three months will recommend how...

The RTI application spilled out mind-boggling inconsistencies “THIS is our NREGS [National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme] farm pond [water harvesting structure],” says 24-year-old Dhanpati with a flourish. Puzzled by his rhetorical declaration, I ask him: “Where is it?” “It is this. You are standing on it,” he says with a wry smile. The farm pond, one of the agricultural revival measures planned by the Central government under the scheme, has not been dug at...

Once noted for exemplary implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), skeletons are fast tumbling out of Rajasthan’s cupboard with regard to the flagship programme of the UPA government. In the past few years, four districts — Tonk, Dungarpur, Dausa and Hanumangarh — purchased desktops and laptops worth Rs 3.83 crore using the NREGA fund. It is another question whether the villagers who were supposed to get...