New Delhi: The Prime Minister's Office on Friday tweeted that growth must be inclusive and must benefit the poor, especially in rural areas. It further tweeted that wages given under MGNREGA per day have almost doubled since the launch of the scheme.
"Every fifth rural household in India benefits from Mahatma Gandhi NREGA scheme," another tweet said.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act aims at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing hundred days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
Earlier, CNN-IBN had accessed Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) report which said only 30 per cent of 129 lakh works worth over Rs 1.26 lakh crore approved in 14 states were completed. Barely 30 per cent of NREGA works completed, while Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh used only 20 per cent of funds. Rural households' work is down from to 43 per cent from 54 per cent, according to the report....
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09:16 AM, May 24, 2013
Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Duvvuri Subbarao went against the suggestion of a majority of external members of the central bank's monetary policy committee that recommended no change in the policy repo rate at a May 3 policy meeting, according to minutes of the meeting seen by Reuters. The RBI cut the key policy repo rate for a third straight time in 2013 to 7.25 per cent, pulling...
02:26 AM, May 24, 2013
New Delhi: Detailing economic growth during the UPA regime, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday the slowdown in 2012 was "temporary" and a longer term view would show that India has notched up an average "8 per cent growth" in the past nine years. The prime minister, presenting the ruling United Progressive Alliance-II's report card, said the economic situation was "turning around" and economic growth rate in 2013-14 could...
02:44 AM, May 23, 2013
Mumbai: Ratings agency Standard & Poor's affirmed India's sovereign rating at 'BBB-minus' with a 'negative' outlook, reiterating there was a one-in-three chances of a ratings downgrade over the next 12 months, a statement said on Friday. S&P said the government's ability to prop up investment growth remained uncertain. The ratings agency, however, said there was scope to upgrade the sovereign ratings if the government unleashes public and private investments to...
04:12 PM, May 17, 2013
Kolkata: The West Bengal government achieved 7.6 per cent growth in GDP compared to the national average of 4.96 per cent during the last financial year. In industry, the growth rate was 6.24 per cent against the national average of 3.12 per cent, Finance Minister Amit Mitra claimed while releasing three books on the completion of two years rule of Mamata Banerjee-led government on Thursday. In agriculture, the state recorded...
01:29 AM, May 17, 2013
Frankfurt: The Reserve Bank of India will take note of falling inflation when discussing potential interest rate cuts, the central bank's Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said on Tuesday, adding he was very happy about the falling inflation. Asked about potential interest rate cuts in light of falling inflation, Subbarao said they would be taken into account and in future central bankers "will take note of softening inflation." The headline wholesale inflation...
04:46 AM, May 15, 2013
New Delhi: Encouraged by the declining trend in inflation, the Finance Ministry on Tuesday made a case for further rate cut by the Reserve Bank to boost sagging growth. "I think we need to look at statement made by RBI Governor during the last policy review where he had stated that RBI is closely monitoring inflation figures and if there is dramatic change in inflation figures then RBI will take...
03:41 PM, May 14, 2013
New Delhi: Industrial output growth surged 2.5 per cent in March compared to a contraction of 2.8 per cent in same month last year, government data showed on Friday. The figures are higher than the February data when it stood at 0.6 per cent. Industrial output grew at a meagre rate of one per cent in 2012-13 compared to 2.9 per cent in the previous fiscal. The industrial output, as...
11:06 AM, May 10, 2013
Mumbai: Hong-Kong entrepreneur Ramesh Tainwala spent 18 months operating branded clothing retail stores in India before deciding it was impossible to succeed without paying bribes. Tainwala, a 55-year-old expatriate Indian, owns Planet Retail, which held the India franchise rights for US fashion labels Guess and Nautica as well as UK retailers Next and Debenhams. He sold the brands last September to various Indian businesses. "Right now it's not possible to...
12:37 PM, May 05, 2013
Mumbai: Dashing expectations of an interest rate cut that have risen because of the recent softening in inflation, as well as decline in crude and gold prices, the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said there is "very limited" space for that in fiscal 2013-14 because of multiple global and domestic risks, notably inflation. A day before its annual monetary policy statement, the bank released the country's macro economic report...
11:10 PM, May 02, 2013
New Delhi: IMF has projected 5.8 per cent economic growth for India in this fiscal 2013-14 and said pace of investment in infrastructure should increase to get back to 8 per cent expansion level. "We are forecasting India to grow at about 5.8 per cent this fiscal (2013-14) and 6.3 per cent in 2014-15. This compares to an average growth rate of 8.7 per cent for the five years prior...
08:55 PM, May 01, 2013
New Delhi: World Bank on Tuesday scaled down India's growth forecast to 6.1 per cent for the current fiscal from 7 per cent projected six months ago. The decline in the growth forecast is largely due to the decline in agriculture sector which is expected to grow at 2 per cent during 2013-14 against the previous estimate of 2.7 per cent despite normal monsoon projection. However, the multi-lateral funding agency...
01:39 PM, Apr 30, 2013
Srinagar: Continued governance deficit has given Jammu and Kashmir a tag of "begging bowl", PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on Sunday claimed, and said development scenario of the state can be changed "perceptibly" by a new government as happened in Bihar. The PDP leader said there are instances within the country when the development scenario was changed "perceptibly" by a new government. Sayeed gave example of Bihar to buttress his...
03:59 AM, Apr 29, 2013
Rome: Italian centre-left politician Enrico Letta named a coalition government on Saturday, making one of Silvio Berlusconi's closest allies deputy prime minister and ending two months of damaging political stalemate. Letta has said his priorities would be the economy, unemployment and restoring faith in Italy's discredited political institutions as well as trying to turn Europe away from austerity to focus more on growth and investment. An inconclusive general election in...
06:35 AM, Apr 28, 2013
New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday expressed confidence that the economy will return to higher growth path of 7-8 per cent in next two to three years and pitched for revitalising investments in the country. "We are confident that we will return to 7-8 per cent growth bracket in the next two to three years. We need to revitalise investment in the country for this purpose," Pranab said at...
08:07 PM, Apr 23, 2013
New Delhi: Improvement in performance of agriculture and manufacturing sectors is expected to push the economic growth rate to 6.4 per cent in 2013-14 from 5 per cent in the previous fiscal, PM's economic advisory panel said on Tuesday . "Economy will grow at higher rate from now. We projected growth rate of 6.4 per cent in the current fiscal", Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) Chairman C Rangarajan said...
11:41 AM, Apr 23, 2013
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday stressed the need to build a climate favouring enterprise and investment while observing that the current economic downturn was only temporary. "I believe that we are facing only a temporary downturn that we should correct as quickly as possible...more needs to be done, especially for building a climate that is perceived to be friendly to enterprise," Singh said inaugurating the 8th Civil...
05:15 AM, Apr 22, 2013
New Delhi: The Reserve Bank may cut the benchmark short-term lending rate by about 0.25 per cent in its annual monetary policy in May in the backdrop of declining inflation and the urgency to promote growth, say economists. "Right now conditions should enable the RBI to cut repo rate. We expect a cut of 25 basis points (or 0.25 per cent) in its policy in May and may be by...
11:30 AM, Apr 21, 2013
Washington: Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday said the three stimulus packages India had provided to the economy in the wake of the global financial crisis post 2008-09 lead to a higher fiscal deficit, inflation and slowdown in growth. He said the government is going to take more steps on the supply side to bring down the inflation and ensure 7 per cent growth rate in 2014. The three stimulus...
03:10 AM, Apr 20, 2013
Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the development that took place in Gujarat over the last 12 years has contributed immensely to the growth of the nation. Speaking at an event, he said "they may like it or not but political pundits and economists have to accept that in the last 12 years, the development that took place in Gujarat has contributed immensely to the growth of...
02:54 AM, Apr 20, 2013
