* The budget barely increased funding to social welfare schemes at a time India’s poorest desperately need succour
* At the beginning of every financial year, social schemes start with arrears, leading to delayed payments. To break this vicious cycle, funding needs to be increased
MUZAFFARPUR (BIHAR): "Dena hi padega BDO, dena hi padega
Har haath ko kaam aapko, dena hi padega."
(You have to, oh BDO, you have to
You have to give work to every hand)
On a sunny afternoon on 24 January, a few hundred women—many of them widows and over 60 years old—took over the lawns of the Mushahari block office in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, known as much for its litchi orchards as for undernourished children succumbing to encephalitis.
The women sang at a languid pace, urging the BDO, short for block development officer, for work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The voice of lead singer Mandesree Devi, a frail-bodied and greying woman not more than five- feet tall, wafted across the grounds like a lullaby. There was no urgency in her voice or in those who followed her in chorus.
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