Harikishan Sharma

Express Investigation Impact: Junior Agriculture Minister returns subsidy taken from his own ministry

Union minister Bhagirath Choudhary has refunded a Rs 99-lakh cucumber farm subsidy following an Indian Express investigation, the Centre told Lok Sabha.

On Lok Sabha website, Lumbaram's profession is mentioned as “agriculturist”, “farmer” and “LIC agent”.

The mass outreach has been proposed through the Adi Karmayogi Abhiyan, which was formally launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September last year to build up a volunteer-led grassroots tribal leadership of about 2 million people across 1 lakh villages.

Official data as on August 9 shows that only 7.67 crore person-days were generated under the VB-G RAM G scheme in July 2026 — which is 49.94 per cent lower as compared to 15.33 crore person-days generated under the MG-NREGS in the same month last year.

Gangwar is a 1994-batch AIS officer from the Rajasthan cadre. His family earlier received Rs 1.16 crore subsidy for their cucumber farm under a Central scheme.

The “end goal” of the campaign is that “citizen voice is captured as a suggestion, converted into an actionable reform and, finally, implemented or progressed on a committed roadmap”, sources said.

The PM CARES Fund was registered as a public charitable trust under the Registration Act, 1908, on March 27, 2020 -- days after the country went into a lockdown in the wake of Covid-19.

Underlining continuous capacity building and upskilling of human resources in government, he said this is “necessary to meet the future demand and objectives of Viksit Bharat”.

Centre's new guidelines: Ministers, MPs, MLAs, officers no longer eligible for subsidies