the Backward Region Grant Fund

Union minister for rural development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh defends reports of irregularities in implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in a interview with Sandip Das

Sh. Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, clears the air about SEZs in an exclusive interview

the United Progressive Alliance government has come up with a watered-down draft of a national rehabilitation policy after dumping an earlier version prepared by the National Advisory Council (nac)

The UPA government is yet to set up an expert group to undertake a survey to identify people below the poverty line (BPL), even as the 11th Plan is already underway. The survey is normally conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in the first year of every Plan period. However with the government's delay in setting up the group, work is expected to begin only in 2009, the third year of the 11th Plan. In fact, the government is yet to set the criteria to measure poverty for the 11th Plan. In the last three Plans, different criteria have been used to identify the poor

The centre, in a major reshuffle of rural development programmes, has brought down the number of centre-sponsored schemes from 214 to 99, says an official of the Union Ministry of Rural Development.