-Livemint.com * Agriculture being a state subject, the state governments take appropriate measures for development of agriculture in the state * Majority of the Agricultural households that possessed more than 0.40 hectare land reported cultivation as their principal source of income NEW DELHI: The government does not have data regarding financial condition of farmers in the country, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Tuesday. In a written reply to a question in the...

-Vikalp.ind.in The NDA government brought a new scheme the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) that became operational from 1st December 2018. It aimed to provide small and marginal farmers (SMFs) financial assistance to procure various inputs to ‘ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields’. It also aimed to protect these farmers from middlemen and moneylenders. SMFs were defined as the farmer families who collectively own cultivable land upto 2 hectares....

-Newsclick.in Till October 2019, over 2.5 crore applicant households were turned back when they sought work under the rural job guarantee scheme. It would have seemed natural – indeed, imperative – that, as India grapples with a deadly slowdown, with agricultural economy growing only at around 2% and rural joblessness hovering at a shocking 8%, the government would infuse some energy in the implementation of the rural jobs guarantee scheme (MGNREGA). This...

-The Hindu While indexation of the NREGA wages is critical, lifting them to the minimum wage would help workers and the economy The government made two recent announcements at two ends of the spectrum to mitigate the economic crisis. One concerns a new indexation of NREGA wages meant to increase rural incomes. The second is a reduction in corporate tax rate. Prices of commodities increase each year, so it’s important to accurately estimate...

-The Hindu Putting more money in the hands of rural households will stir up the economy The government’s statistical machinery has begun work on revising the indices that capture the trends in consumer prices experienced in rural India. This opens up the prospect for an upward revision in the wages paid out to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The current national average wage is just about...