-TheWire.in Private moneylenders are a major source of loans across the region, and with the collapse of banking in rural areas, their role has only grown. Baliram Kadpe is critical of the Maharashtra government. “Farmers do not get the minimum support price [for their crops, from the state],” he says with concern. “And it is tedious for them to acquire crop loans.” Kadpe believes if the state ensures that farmers have access...
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When farmers got Re.1 loan waiver
-The Hindu Over 17,260 persons in Uttar Pradesh get relief of just Rs. 1,000 or less Over 17,260 farmers in Uttar Pradesh have received loan waiver certificates for only Rs. 1,000 or less under a scheme in which the BJP government had promised to waive farm loans of up to Rs. 1 lakh. Of the 17,262 farmers, 4,814 got loan waivers of amounts between Rs. 1 and Rs. 100, while 6,895 received...
More »MS Swaminathan, father of India's Green Revolution, interviewed by Vidya Venkat (The Hindu)
-The Hindu Fifty years since the Green Revolution, the architect of the reform highlights the crisis facing Indian agriculture today It is 11 years since agronomist M.S. Swaminathan handed over his recommendations for improving the state of agriculture in India to the former United Progressive Alliance government, at the height of the Vidarbha farmer suicides crisis, but they are still to be implemented. To address the agrarian crisis and farmers’ unrest across...
More »Economy will decelerate if States resort to farm loan waivers
-The Hindu Business Line Total burden could swell to Rs. 2.7 lakh cr New Delhi: Farm loan waivers could be detrimental to the economy as they could reduce aggregate demand by 0.7 per cent of GDP, imparting a significant deflationary shock to the economy, the Survey said. There is visible farm stress, even though it is not as widespread as it is made out to be, the Survey said, adding that the drastic...
More »Rural Distress: A farmer- and banker-friendly alternative to agricultural loan waivers -Sher Singh Sangwan
-The Indian Express The failure of populist rural credit schemes stems primarily from poor understanding of farm indebtedness in the first place. From the 1970s, a lot of private investment in tube-well irrigation, farm mechanisation and allied agricultural activities took place with bank credit support. After the establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 1982, institutional credit flows not only accelerated, but also exhibited diversification to fund livestock...
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