After hitting headlines on lack of toilets and roping in filmstars Vidya Balan and Shah rukh Khan for campaign, Union minister of rural development Jairam Ramesh has got an “assurance” from the Planning Commission for a total allocation of a whopping Rs36,000 crores in the 12th five-year plan for Total Sanitation Campaign, which is now being restructured, against mere Rs7,816 crores in the 11th five-year plan.

In a rare anti-Mamata gesture, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has written a letter to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleging “non-utilisation of funds” to the tune of o

Shahrukh Khan and Vidya Balan will come together, not to promote a commercial venture, but to act as brand ambassadors to fight open defecation, propagate sanitation and appeal to the people to get clean.

Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, who also holds the portfolio of drinking water and sanitation, has broached the idea with the actors, and their response has been positive.

New Delhi, April 17: If this doesn’t raise a national stink, little else will. Around 3.5 crore toilets are missing in India, if official statistics are not meant to be flushed down the drain.

Having kicked up a controversy by saying women in villages demand mobile phones and not toilets, Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh on Monday announced that his ministry has decided to us

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has launched a dedicated ‘Ajeevika” cell to help alleviating poverty in rural hinterlands.

Admitting that MNREGA has its share of corruption and irregularities, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Sunday guidelines for the revamped version of the Centre’s flagship rural deve

In its first major initiative of involving corporate India in developmental work, the governmenthas sought big business partnerships in setting up the Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF).

Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh will be touring 12 backward districts in Madhya Pradesh over the next four months to review the working of the flagship schemes of the Central government.

Speaking at a State-level party program here, Mr. Ramesh assured leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Ajay Singh that he would personally tour districts such as Jhabua and Sidhi among others to review the working of the flagship schemes.

The Union rural development ministry is setting up a body called “Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation’ (BRLF) with a `1,000-crore corpus with the help of India Inc, to promote economic and social empowerment in 170 districts, including those affected by Naxal violence.

“I have already written to the Tatas, Reliance, Infosys, and Wipro, apart from the dairy cooperative NDDB, and Nabard, to be the founding members of BRLF. My ministry is giving initial corpus of `500 crore,” Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said here on Sunday.