-The Indian Express A renewed funding squeeze may undermine MGNREGA’s recent revival, fear civil society activists. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, may have staged a revival in the last two quarters after showing a declining trend in person-days generation during the first year of the Narendra Modi government. But the turnaround could well be temporary,...

-The Hindu Several instances of in-kind transfers being successfully implemented. Social sector groups want Finance Minister to review the implementation of alternative subsidy systems before going ahead with Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). “There have been several instances of in-kind transfers being successfully implemented in various parts of the country. Our appeal to the Finance Minister was to look at all the successful examples of alternative schemes before the government pushes ahead with the...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Ahead of the Budget, eminent citizens across the country have written an open letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley requesting him to accord “highest priority” to the rural job guarantee scheme, MGNREGA, and allocate additional ₹5,000 crore to the Ministry of Rural Development. “Subsequent Budget estimations and allocations to the programme must be brought in line with inflation; be measured and maintained as a percentage of...

Representatives of around 20 civil society organizations and NGOs met the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley as part of pre-budget consultation on social sector on 12 January, 2016. Immediately after the pre-budget consultation, a press conference was held by some of these organizations to convey the media persons what demands/ suggestions were made.   Subrat Das, Executive Director of Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA, http://www.cbgaindia.org/) informed us that during...

-TheWire.in New Delhi: Come February 2, representatives of various states will visit Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi for the “Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Sammelan”, the annual ritual that celebrates the one-of-a kind rural employment scheme of the Government of India – the MGNREGA. However, along with sharing good practices for effective implementation of the scheme, it looks like representatives of at least 12 states will also highlight the need for the Centre to...