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...

-The Times of India Raipur: To make sure that no kid sleeps without food in drought-hit areas even when their schools take a summer break, Chhattisgarh government has decided to continue the supply of midday meals during summer vacation as well. Around 26 lakh children in 117 tehsil of 25 districts will benefit with the move. An official circular issued by education SECretary Subrat Sahu stated that all students of government schools...

-The Hindu Business Line IOB, BoB and Canara Bank lead, finds study by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiatives   New Delhi: As the Finance Ministry and the central bank try to clean up the balance sheets of troubled public SECtor lenders, a new study has found that banks that saw a sharp rise in bad loans in 2014-15 were not very forthcoming with information requests by the public. While noting that there was “no positive...

-PTI Ahmedabad: Gujarat government today started implementation of National Food SECurity Act (NFSA), state cabinet minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said. The scheme, however, will be officially launched on April 6 by Chief Minister Ananiben Patel, Chudasama, the Gujarat Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer affairs minister, said. "Under the scheme, we will cover around 3.40 crore eligible citizens who will be given food grains at subsidised rates through our Public Distribution System (PDS) shops. The...

-The Indian Express Because this time, it’s only rural producers, not urban consumers, who are feeling the heat This time’s drought has been a most unusual one. Even with three conSECutive bad crops (kharif 2014, rabi 2015, and kharif 2015) and a fourth not-so-great one (thankfully, there’s been no big damage from the unseasonal rain and hail unlike in March 2015), annual consumer food price inflation is only 5.3 per cent. In the...