The Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Ministry and the Rajasthan Government are giving final touches to a mega event to mark the half century of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) at Nagaur, where on October 2, 1959, Jawarharlal Nehru, as Prime Minister inaugurated the three-tier Panchayati Raj System in the country.

DIBRUGARH, Sept 18

Direct cash transfer is a better way to help the poor than rural employment guarantee
Arvind Panagariya

The 11th meeting of the governing body of the State Institute of Rural Development, Assam was held recently.

The meeting was presided over by Minister, P&RD Chandan Brahma. Among others, Principal Secretary of P&RD, Arun Kumar, senior officers of planning and development, finance, senior bank officials, NGO representatives and SIRD officials were present at the meeting.

BHUBANESWAR: The Swarnajayanti Gram Sworajgar Yojana (SGSY), the massive self-employment programme of the Government, will now be implemented in a mission mode under a restructured scheme called National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).

An expert group of the Rural Development Ministry on the methodology for conducting the BPL census for the 11th Five Year Plan has suggested to the Orissa government that the actual level of BPL population in the state should be revised upwards to 84.47 per cent from the present level of 47 per cent.

V Ashok Kumar |

INSPIRED by former President A P J Abdul Kalam, a group of college students here has formed an association to uplift villages in the district. Around 1,000 students from 50 colleges across the city are members of Kalam Students Foundation, which will focus on improving the infrastructure facilities at villages.

After reports of Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee having stalled the Bill seeking amendment to the Land Acquisition Act in the Cabinet, Rural Development Minister C P Joshi on Tuesday said that the Bill had been cleared by the Cabinet and it is only a matter of procedure before it is introduced in Parliament.

With Centre's plan to launch National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) by the end of the year, the Ministry of Rural Development has decided to set up 500 Rural Self-employment Training Institutes (RSETI), almost one in each rural district of the country.

In a move that is bound to trigger angry reactions from the states, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) has decided that the estimation of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) numbers by the government would be considered final for the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), thereby nipping in the bud the problem of various estimates put forth by different committees.