Although the Union Finance Minister in his 1999 budget speech declared the 1999-2000 as the year of the Gram Sabha, adequate efforts were not made to enforce the declaration excepting in a few states like West Bengal and Kerala. The culture of not holding GS meetings got wide currency because the elected bodies and officials wanted to implement various developmental programmes in secrecy.
The Andhra Pradesh government, quietly and unobtrusively, has achieved something quite remarkable: the conduct of the social audit for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) using the RTI Act; and therefore sown the seeds for a non-violent revolution in less than two years.
The draft Nirmal Gram guidelines by the Department of drinking water supply (DDWS). Details modifications related to the eligibility critieria, application and scrutiny process, usage of incentive, sustainability measures etc. Comments/suggestions on the guidelines can be sent till April 22, 2009.
The present Act and Rules seeks to correct the historical injustice done to Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers, by granting them security of tenure over individual and community holdings, ownership of Minor Forest Produce, Nistar and Grazing Rights and adequate safeguards for their rehabilitation, in cases of their displacement from present locations, on account of forestry and
This paper documents the Andhra Pradesh experience of institutionalizing social audits into the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, and uses it to analyze the social audit process. It draws on empirical work aimed at measuring the effectiveness of social audits conducted in Andhra Pradesh between March and December 2007.
This paper documents the Andhra Pradesh experience of institutionalizing social audits into the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, and uses it to analyze the social audit process. It draws on empirical work aimed at measuring the effectiveness of social audits conducted in Andhra Pradesh between March and December 2007.
Once covered with lush teak forests, Pati block in Badwani district of Madhya Pradesh now has a depressing lunar landscape of denuded hills, where only subsistence agriculture is possible. Most rural households there survive on wage labour and seasonal migration.
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, is a landmark legislation that recognizes and provides a framework for vesting forest use, protection and conservation rights, and occupation in forest land, to tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, residing in such forests for generations.
This paper examines how political institutions and local power structures interact with and influence local public resource allocation in the Indian state of Karnataka. It use data from 80
village councils and 225 villages to examine how this local political economy influences the allocation of public resources. The empirical strategy exploits certain features of a policy that
