-Live Mint Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's first panchyati raj minister, talks about the challenges the institutions face On Wednesday, India marked 20 years of panchayati raj, an exercise in devolving power to people at the grassroots. Rajya Sabha memberMani Shankar Aiyar was India's first panchyati raj minister, appointed to the newly created ministry in 2004. He headed a committee that examined the reasons why attempts at sharing power with self-governance units haven't...
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Saradha crisis: Mamata hikes VAT on tobacco for relief fund- Romita Datta
-PTI Mamata Banerjee stages reversal of former apathy towards fate of those affected by Saradha Group demise Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee staged a reversal of her former apathy towards the fate of those whose savings had disappeared amid the collapse of the deposit-taking Saradha Group. Having said on Monday that "what has gone, has gone", Banerjee on Wednesday announced a 10 percentage point hike in value-added tax (VAT) on tobacco...
More »Irregularities in implementation of national rural employment scheme: CAG audit report -Swati Mathur
-The Times of India LUCKNOW: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India tabled the second performance audit of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Parliament on Tuesday. The first performance audit was undertaken in 2007-08. The period of coverage of the first audit was February 2006 to March 2007. The present performance audit of the implementation of MGNREGA was taken up in response to a request from the ministry...
More »UPA's flagship employment scheme draws flak from CAG
-PTI Implementation of government's flagship scheme MNREGA has come under flak from CAG on various counts, including diversion of funds and impermissible works undertaken to the tune of about Rs 2,252 crore. The audit undertaken by the Comptroller and Auditor General of the programme launched by the Rural Development Ministry in 2006 found that works amounting to around Rs 4,070 crore were incomplete even after one to five years of launching. The CAG...
More »WB govt plans crackdown to tackle chit fund scam -Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri
-The Hindustan Times A day after the police seized Saradha Group chairman Sudipta Sen's property and froze his bank accounts for duping thousands of people with his chit-fund money-trap, a PIL was filed in Calcutta high court petitioning the court to order a CBI enquiry into the Saradha Group. Income Tax officials and Left MPs have also decided to nail all those involved with the dubious firm. While the Income-Tax department is planning...
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