Banks have disbursed nearly Rs 90,000 crore credit to farmers in the April-June quarter of this fiscal, the government said on Monday. The government has fixed the credit flow target during 2010-11 fiscal at Rs 3,75,000 crore. "Agriculture credit of Rs 89,687 crore has been disbursed to farmers across the country till June 2010 in the financial year 2010-11," an official statement said. The credit disbursement in 2009-10 was Rs 3,66,919 crore against...

For generations, a majority of Vidarbha’s debt-ridden farmers have only grown cotton, making themselves vulnerable to unreliable market conditions. Now, these and other districts facing an agrarian crisis, as well as the rest of the state’s agriculture community may have some reason to smile. Rs 643 crore will be pumped into the state for the farmers, with the government going ahead with its ambitious Maharashtra Competitive Agriculture Project (MACP). On Tuesday, the...

According to the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) data on loans given out by nationalised and cooperative banks, there are more farmers doing agriculture in Delhi than Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal. The farmers in Delhi were allotted loan of Rs 22,077 crore in 2009 alone at mere 5% rate of interest, which is the second highest after agriculture-rich Punjab. Delhi’s loan disbursal amount is bizarre,...

Eminent economist and Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board Prabhat Patnaik said on Saturday that the euphoria in official circles over financial inclusion has risen because of the “systematic scaling down of institutional credit to the peasantry and other productive sectors in the last two decades”. Delivering the centenary lecture dedicated to the memory of Prabhat Kar, a pioneer of the trade union movement in the banking industry, Mr....

Last month, leaders from 185 countries met in New York to take stock of progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — which include, among other things, eradicating poverty and hunger, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health — that were set in 2000 by the United Nations. The aim was to achieve these goals by 2015. But 10 years down the line, the world is way behind targets in achieving...