<p>Judgment of the Calcutta High Court in the matter of Yeasin Molla & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 12/09/2023.</p> <p>The petitioners are the ration card holders and members of Priority
This was only a one-time waiver and farmers would fall back into debt Left parties would oppose move to increase working hours from 8 to 10 THRISSUR: Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan said on Saturday that the loan waiver scheme announced by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in his budget speech on Friday was no solution to farmers' indebtedness. "For four years, you saw the farmers dying. For four years, you watched them fall deeper and deeper into indebtedness and committing suicide in States like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala. And, in the fifth year, with the elections coming, you hand out some sops. Then again, it is a one-time waiver. But what happens tomorrow? They will be thrown from one round of indebtedness to another,' Mr. Bardhan said, inaugurating the four-day State conference of the CPI here. Beneficiaries The CPI leader also questioned the government's claim about the number of farmers who would benefit and pointed out that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was on record that more than half the farmers in the country were dependent on money-lenders for their credit needs. The government's loan waiver offer would not touch such loans. If the government was sincere about the farm debt crisis, it should have announced the formation of a Debt Relief Commission and pegged the interest rate on farm loans at 4 per cent as demanded by the Left parties when the budget was in the making, he said. Mr. Bardhan said the CPI and other Left parties would oppose the proposal in the Economic Survey to increase working hours from eight to ten. They would wage a battle to thwart attempts to curtail the rights won by the working class over 150 years ago through a long struggle. He also pointed out that the Finance Minister did not respond to the Left's plea for measures to universalise the public distribution system. He welcomed the decision to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to all the districts in the country, but regretted that only Rs.16,000 crores was earmarked for its implementation. This would not be sufficient to provide 100 days' employment to all the eligible persons in the rural areas or to give them wages as envisaged in the NREG Act. The failure to make adequate funds available clearly showed that the government was not interested in implementing the scheme in letter and in spirit, Mr. Bardhan said. The BJP was trying its best to utilise the discontent in the minds of the people over a host of issues, including the sharp increase in the prices of essentials, he said. The Congress seemed to be offering power to the BJP on a platter, with its ill-conceived policies and failure to come out with people-friendly measures. On its part, the Left was committed to keeping the BJP out of power and wanted all the Left and secular parties to come together on a common platform on the basis of a clear pro-people programme. What emerged from the exercise should not be a Third Front where parties came together for electoral purposes, but a real third alternative to the Congress and the BJP, he said.
State stands to gain from welfare schemes announced for minorities Roughly four lakh farmers in Kerala are expected to gain from the debt relief measures announced by Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's farmer-friendly budget. Since the huge majority of farmers in debt in Kerala are marginal (holding below one hectare) and small (below two hectares), their debts could be totally waived. And a sizeable number of them will be from two districts, Wayanad and Idukki, and most of them will be the so-called
JOBS: Allocation for the scheme, which provides job on demand to the rural population, is Rs 16,000 crore. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, the flagship programme of the UPA government, which provides job on demand to the rural population, has been extended to all the 596 rural districts in the country with effect from April 1, 2008. The allocation made for the scheme with legislative backing is Rs 16,000 crore. For 2007-08, the allocation for the scheme implemented in 330 districts was Rs 12,000 crore. The finance minister assured that as the scheme was not an Act, the government would provide financial backing for it, no matter what the amount. But, according to the Ministry of Rural Development, till December 2007, the NREGA was able to spend only 60 per cent of the funds available. At the same time, the NREGA was able to provide more than 85 crore man-days of work to more than 25 million households in 2007-08. The finance minister also said that as long as the country experienced a growth rate of more than 8.5 per cent, it could create jobs required for all segments. For Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, a programme providing self-employment to the rural poor, an allocation of Rs 2,150 crore was made, up Rs 350 crore from Rs 1,800 crore provided in Budget 2007-08. While letting the individual ministries like labour and employment carry on with their own skill development programmes, the finance minister announced establishment of a non-profit corporation with the mission of imparting world-class skills for the emerging economy. The government will provide Rs 1,000 crore, while Rs 15,000 crore will be raised from other sources. The government has alloted Rs 750 crore for the upgrade of 300 ITIs next year. It intends to upgrade 1,396 out of the 1,896 government ITIs in public-private partnership by the end of the Eleventh Plan period, which will provide quality technicians to the industry.
When the National Advisory Council (NAC) was preparing the draft legislation on the right to employment, it had, in the words of one of its key members, Jean Dreze, to
The district collector, Mr K. Devanand, on Friday asked rain-affected farmers to make good use of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) to harvest the remaining crop. The district collector said this while launching the programme in the fields of Allur village in Prakasam district. The biggest damage was suffered by the chickpea crop in the district and 5,392 acres were damaged in the sea-coast Kothapatnam mandal alone. Besides this, 2,400 acres of cultivated lands were damaged in Allur village. Mr Devanand said agriculture workers would be deputed for two days in chickpea fields and three days for tobacco harvesting.
Residents of Panihari village are now a happy lot. They are celebrating freedom from floods for the first time in living memory. Agricultural wages have incresed across the district in the past one year. They say their lives have improved because of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).
Centre for Environment Concerns (CEC), Hyderabad, in association with over two hundred activists and select voluntary organizations is assisting officials in select districts in implementing the NREGA in Andhra Pradesh. This is based on a memorandum of understanding between CEC and the Department of Rural Development and agreed upon as voluntary service and thus without remuneration.
Poverty is deepest among scheduled castes and tribes in the country
After 30 years of dynamic growth and substantial poverty reduction in Asia, do agriculture and rural development still have a role to play in that region?
This paper makes an effort to provide a framework for good governance in India by identifying its essential features and shortcomings in its working. No theory of governance could be intelligible unless it is seen in the context of its time.
