-Newsclick.in At least 45 farmers have killed themselves since the lockdown began, said farmers’ body Rythu Swarajya Vedika. About 70% of farmers who committed suicides during the lockdown period in the last two months are tenant farmers cultivating crops in 5 to 20 acres of agricultural land, a study conducted by Telugu daily Eenadu has revealed. Besides difficulties related to crop procurement, the study found that loss of crops, financial distress related...
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COVID-19 Lockdown: Impact on Agriculture and Rural Economy -Vikas Rawal, Manish Kumar, Ankur Verma and Jesim Pais
-Society for Social and Economic Research Monograph 20/3 Key Messages Lack of planning and preparation by the Central government for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a massive blow to India’s economy and has caused enormous hardships to working people of the country. Harvesting of Rabi crops • Unplanned and sudden imposition of the lockdown resulted in a massive and unprecedented disruption to agricultural activities such as harvesting, sale of agricultural produce, and purchase...
More »Most small farmers outside formal credit system. Sitharaman’s announcements won’t help them -Shoumitro Chatterjee and Mekhala Krishnamurthy
-ThePrint.in An RBI report says that despite numerous existing initiatives, at most 40 per cent of India’s small and marginal farmers are covered by formal credit. There is no doubt that agricultural credit is a critical element of both agricultural production and marketing across India. However, during a period of acute crisis, the government needs to bank on channels that are relatively robust and far-reaching. Unfortunately, especially when it comes to small...
More »Enough with the lofty rhetoric. It’s time to let the money do the talk -Himanshu
-Livemint.com Slogans, vision statements and acronyms are unlikely to be of any help to those in distress As the details of the mega fiscal package of ₹20 trillion announced by the prime minister are slowly being revealed by the finance minister (FM), it is increasingly becoming clear that it has less to do with the immediate crisis of lives and livelihood and more to do with the long-term agenda of reforms and...
More »Coronavirus package: Migrant workers to get free foodgrains
-The Hindu Rs.3,500 crore of second tranche of stimulus to be spent on allocation to those without ration cards. A major focus of the second tranche of the economic stimulus package announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday was to provide free foodgrains for the next two months to migrant workers who do not have ration cards. The Centre will spend ₹3,500 crore for this purpose. Quoting numbers from State governments,...
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