-Down to Earth Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget has all the ingredients to deepen India’s farm crisis These are desperate times for India. Rural unemployment was at a 45-year-high while consumption expenditure of rural families fell 9 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, according to a report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the government never released but got leaked to the media in November 2019. Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the income of farmers...
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'Digital divide' persists despite the country's desire to become a digital giant
A recent report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) brings forth the dichotomy between digital divide and India’s transition towards a cashless economy. The rural-urban divide in access to computer and internet is quite stark, according to the report entitled 'Key Indicators of Household Social Consumption on Education in India, July 2017 to June 2018'. The 75th round National Sample Survey (NSS) report on education finds that...
More »Move to Cash transfers will lead to savings, put agriculture on sustainable growth path -Ashok Gulati
-The Indian Express All such investments will go a long way to augment farmers’ incomes in a sustainable manner. Else, I am afraid, much of the talk in the Union budget for agri-reforms will remain mere rhetoric. Although the Union budget is basically an accounting exercise of revenues and expenditures for the coming year, economy-watchers anxiously wait for the finance minister to announce major economic reforms. In that sense, the budget of...
More »Budget 2020-21: Will MGNREGA become an overarching rural development scheme -Richard Mahapatra
-Down to Earth The upcoming budget will see many schemes being brought under the rural employment programme; a direct Cash transfer may be declared to top this up Union Budget 2020-21 will be a landmark for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Not just because India is going through an economic slowdown, but also for the fact that it will herald a countdown for many of his ambitious promises that come with prime ministerial...
More »Why farmers don't like direct Cash transfers -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The main reason for rejecting the DCT (as opposed to DBT) option was the belief that paying market price for fertilisers upfront would result in additional financial burden. More than three-fourths of Indian farmers like the new system of fertiliser subsidy linked to sales made to them by retailers being registered on point-of-sale (PoS) machines. This so-called direct benefit transfer (DBT) system, wherein the subsidy to fertiliser companies...
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