-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Farmers in UP's Bundelkhand region will get drought assistance directly into their bank accounts within a week, with the Samajwadi party government set to disburse Rs 1,304 crore out of its drought-assistance kitty given to it by the Centre. The decision was taken during a review meeting on the drought-affected Bundelkhand region by the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday. A provision to extend man-days from 100...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: The Centre will work out a strategy for crop production for the coming kharif cropping season keeping in mind the recent crop damage due to unseasonal rain and moisture stress and deficit monsoon last year. The strategy will be thrashed out at a national conference on kharif 2016 next week. The kharif cropping season is from July to October during the South-West monsoon. “The South-West monsoon of the...

-Business Standard After a hotter than usual summer, a better monsoon would boost agriculture, rural demand Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan's hopes of a normal monsoon this year - after two back-to-back droughts - to boost rural demand could be fulfilled. Though the summer is expected to be hotter than usual, global and domestic forecasts point to good rains this year. Officials of both the weather department and private forecasters said the...

-The Hindu Business Line The new scheme offers lower premium, more risk cover and hassle-free settlement Crop insurance schemes have not been a hit with Indian farmers in the past. High premia, limited coverage, complicated ways of assessing losses and delayed payment of compensation have kept farmers away from them. Given the high risk of crop damage in India, with significant loss in food grain production in 18 of the last 54 years...

The budgetary support to interest subvention scheme has increased by almost 14 times between 2006-07 and 2016-17. However, the much-touted subsidised short-term credit scheme provides little help to the small and marginal farmers, apart from tenant farmers. According to the Committee on Medium-term Path on Financial Inclusion, which submitted its report in December 2015, the interest subvention scheme suffers from 3 types of defects: i. Subsidised credit may not be...