The finance ministry is all set to increase the agriculture lending target by around 25% in the budget for 2012-13 despite a sharp increase in the non-performing loans in the sector.  In the last budget, the government had increased the target to 4.75 lakh crore from 3.75 lakh crore in the year before.  "Banks will continue to focus on all priority sector areas. This year more focus will be on direct lending...

The National Food Security Bill has the potential to make a significant difference to the lives of the poor if properly implemented. However, the Bill in its present form has some easily correctible flaws that could cause huge problems in the future. A couple of simple amendments would greatly simplify the implementation and also allow innovation in the delivery of food subsidy. First, the proposed framework based on three categories of...

-AP The microfinance industry pursued a path of rapid business growth in recent years; two investigations now link it to debtor suicides   First they were stripped of their utensils, furniture, mobile phones, television sets, ration cards and heirloom gold jewellery. Then, some of them drank pesticide. One woman threw herself into a pond. Another jumped into a well with her children. Sometimes, the debt collectors watched nearby. More than 200 poor, debt-ridden residents of...

India moved a step closer to implementing cash transfers of direct subsidies and social welfare payments after a high-level panel presented the blueprint for effecting it through an Aadhaar-based payment gateway. Accepting the report, which details how all payments and cash transfers can be made electronically, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee indicated that it will be the key to plug leakages and ensure more targeted spending under the government’s social welfare programmes. The...

Faulty procurement, rising farm inputs force West Bengal farmers to commit suicide LONG known as farmer friendly, West Bengal is now making headlines for farmers’ suicides. Reportedly 31 farmers, including landless farm labourers and small traders of agriculture produce, in the state took their lives between October last year and January. Twenty-one of the 31 deaths are from the state’s rice bowl Burdwan district. And this is probably a reason the spate...