A doctor checks the temperature of a child at a mobile clinic in Chennai. | Arun Sankar/ AFP
The Union Budget for the fiscal year 2021-’22 was supposed to be a landmark plan. The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman had said this Budget would be unprecedented, and while we know that such grandiose labels are used every year, the circumstances this year are different.
Coming on the back of an unprecedented global pandemic that has shot the wheels off the Indian economy, clearly there was an important moment. The Budget, already weary under the constraints of a stuttering economy, had much to do and a lot of people to please. The time had come to finally make a large allocation to public investment that could spur growth.
India must get rid of wasteful spending, have credible divestment plan, says Gita Gopinath
IMF’s chief economist says India should continue providing support in cash and kind, allocate more to MGNREGA to reduce inequality and poverty post pandemic.
Remya Nair 28 January, 2021 9:34 pm IST Text Size:
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New Delhi: India should eliminate wasteful spending and bring out a credible disinvestment plan, Gita Gopinath, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said Thursday.
Delivering the National Council of Applied Economic Research’s C.D. Deshmukh lecture, Gopinath stressed the need for India to look at ways to increase revenues and curb wasteful expenditure, and come out with a credible medium-term fiscal plan that can be achieved once the pandemic ends.
Women farmers at the Delhi protest ask, ‘What’s for us in these laws?’
Though the agrarian crisis hurts them profoundly, women farmers and labourers have been written out of the debates about the sector. Jan 18, 2021 · 06:30 am Women farmers display pictures of family members who have died by suicide due their debt burdens. | Navsharan Singh
In the middle of December, farmers on Delhi’s Tikri border protesting the three new agriculture laws were joined by hundreds of women farmers from Punjab’s Malwa region. They came in 17 buses and 10 tractor trolleys, nearly 1,000 of them, to demand that the ‘‘black laws” be repealed.
p Minister for rural development and panchayati raj K S Eshwarappa (second right) said gram panchayat offices in Karnataka will switch over to solar power, in Udupi on Tuesday. (Photo credits: Jaideep Shenoy) br /p
UDUPI: Rural development and panchayati raj department will opt for solar energy solutions to power gram panchayat offices in Karnataka. Tenders have been finalized for this ambitious project that will be implemented at a cost of Rs 300 crore in the next two years.
Chief executive officers of zilla panchayats may choose from among the empanelled agencies to implement the project in gram panchayats in their respective districts.
Synopsis
This is primarily on the back of drying of funds under the scheme as some states which are traditionally more active have either exhausted their allocation under Mgnrega or are going slow on spending to spread it over next quarter with a lower rate of replenishment from the Centre.
PTI
Data shows out of total central release of Rs 82424.62 crore, expenditure of Rs 81605.8 crore has been made in the current financial year so far.
Work generation under the rural employment generation scheme the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme saw a significant dip in December despite demand for work being higher compared to previous months since August, impacting rural incomes.