The Union cabinet has approved a bill to rename the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and increase the number of work days under the scheme.
A bill to repeal the MGNREGA and introduce a new rural employment law, the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), has been circulated among Lok Sabha members.
AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami has asserted that alliances are formed only at the time of elections and declined to categorically say if his party would align with the BJP for the 2026 Assembly polls. Palaniswami met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday and brought to his attention several issues faced by Tamil Nadu, including the need for funds release, the implementation of the Godavari-Cauvery river linking plan, and a probe into the "TASMAC scam." He said that while the party would decide on an alliance at the time of the election, he did not rule out a tie-up with the BJP.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Condolences have poured in from across the globe, including from the United States, Canada and Sri Lanka following the demise of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday underlined the need for collaboration between the Centre and states to take up the next-generation reforms covering land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. As far as revenue share goes, the government has projected to give about 32.5 per cent of central taxes to states during FY25, against the 15th Finance Commission's recommendation of 41 per cent, according to the Union Budget estimate.
Buoyancy in the real estate sector along with improved construction activities created jobs and facilitated the return of migrant workers to cities, the Economic Survey for 2022-23 tabled in Parliament on Tuesday said. This assumes significance in view of loss of jobs due to lockdown restrictions imposed in various parts of the country from time to time amid different waves of pandemic since March 2020. The survey points towards sustained recovery in the economic activities during 2022-23 fiscal year.
The government is committed to provide Rs 100 a day as wages under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, said finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
With the fiscal deficit target staring at the government, the FY25 Budget has limited expenditure options, points out A K Bhattacharya.
Few finance ministers announce any taxation measure that could upset the stock market. Ms Sitharaman decided to take that risk, observes A K Bhattacharya.
The Union government is projected to share about 32 per cent of central taxes with states during the financial year 2024-25 against the 15th Finance Commission's recommendation of 41 per cent. The Revised Estimates (RE) for FY24, too, show a similar share of states in the central taxes at 32 per cent. In absolute terms, however, there has been an increase in the amount devolved to states compared to the Budget Estimates (BE) for FY24 at Rs 11 trillion.
But the government will present a second tranche of Supplementary Demands for Grants during the Budget session of Parliament in February, when it can seek additional spending.
'Elections are fought to win.' 'In our party, the leadership takes the final decision, and our leaders are very clear about it.'
India's post-pandemic recovery appears to be shaping up like the letter K, widening the inequality among states. The last part of the series captures the rising rural distress, as seen through the prism of MGNREGS demand. The pandemic appears to have exacerbated rural distress in the poorest states.
The rural development ministry has asked NGO's to run the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in in Naxal-hit areas.
The Bihar government has sacked 110 officials of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme from service for corruption.
NREGS has no place in the scheme of things that Kejriwal prescribes for the nation in his book Swaraj.
CEOs point fingers at rural job guarantee and related govt welfare schemes; say mechanisation an increasingly viable option.
Ramesh opposes Pawar's plan to provide cheap labour to farmers under NREGS.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday urged his successor D V Sadananda Gowda to immediately release Rs 200 crore for providing employment to people in drought-hit areas under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
The pilot project would begin from South 24 Parganas district and be gradually extended to all other 18 districts of the state, Panchayat and Rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee said.
Youth unemployment (ages 15 to 29) is higher than the national average of 12.4 per cent in Telangana (14.2 per cent) and Rajasthan (13 per cent), followed by Chhattisgarh (6.7 per cent) and MP (6 per cent).
The top court's remark came while setting aside an order of the Madras high court which directed the Tamil Nadu government to create the posts under the designation.
New Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has, however, taken up the challenge on how to synchronise the employment guarantee programme with the ground realities.
China has sought information on India's poverty reduction programmes, including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, to beef up its own strategy.
State governments yet to act on sorting MGNREGA wage delays
The government has revised the wages for unskilled manual workers under the national rural employment guarantee scheme by indexing it to inflation, Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said.
US hopes to learn from these innovative and dynamic programmes in India.
Will the new Congress government implement the five 'guarantees' that helped it in part to wrest power from the Bharatiya Janata Party in toto or will they now add a "conditions apply" clause?
At least 22 Uttar Pradesh government officials have been suspended for their alleged bungling of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) funds.
The job guarantee scheme is set to provide food grain as part of wages.
The scheme guarantees 100 days work per household in a year and had been providing a major chunk by June each year.
Although India is a labour-surplus economy with an unlimited number of workers willing to work at a subsistence wage a paradoxical feature of the labour market is the rising incidence of scarcity or shortages amid a situation of potential plenty.
The project titled 'Thanal' launched by Edavaka Gram Panchayat with MGNREGS help, has provided less strenuous jobs for 600 senior citizens, including 250 tribals and 10 physically challenged in 15 nursery units, Panchayat President, Justine Baby has said.
The Tamil Nadu development formula makes programmes like the NREGS work through simple but top-down solutions.
Under the plan being worked out, the labour component of the railway projects, which include the expansion of train lines or conversion of line gauge, would be funded from NREGS, as most of these projects require a large labour force and generate employment opportunities in rural areas.
Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has said states would not be allowed to ignore the findings of the social audits notified recently by his ministry on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
"It may be a wild thought now. But the first Green Revolution came about as a result of very high water guzzling cropping systems from the irrigated regions of the country. But the NREGA holds the trigger for a second Green Revolution from the rain-fed areas, but using water conserving technologies and working with the smaller and poorer farmers while the first revolution came from the big farmers," Dr. Sharma said.
False and acrimonious debates such as Modi versus Manmohan might allow for victories that are political and partisan. But the real loser is the nation, India and Bharat, notes Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor to the Modi government in its first term.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the rural spending would not be affected by the drought situation caused by delayed monsoon, but was likely to improve due to the government's flagship NREGS. He said there would be some revival in the third and fourth quarters though the overall growth would be moderate, with the current year recording a growth rate of 6 per cent.
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