Indian Anti-Poverty Plan

Posted by admin on Feb 7, 2006 in News | 0 comments

INDIA — The Indian government has launched an ambitious effort to tackle rural poverty that will target 60 million rural households by guaranteeing 100 days of work each year. Under the National Rural Guarantee Scheme, they will receive a minimum wage of 60 rupees or an unemployment allowance if there is no work. The first phase of the program will cover 200 of the country’s poorest and least developed districts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the scheme in a village in the drought-prone Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh by handing out job cards to five villagers. “We must tirelessly work to ensure that the benefit of the scheme reaches needy people,” the Press Trust of India quotes Singh as saying. More than a third of India’s population of over one billion people live on less than $1 a day.