-The Financial Express Come January, Food Corporation of India (FCI), under a severe financial crunch, may be forced to trim its procurement operations. Come January, Food Corporation of India (FCI), under a severe financial crunch, may be forced to trim its procurement operations. Unless the finance ministry releases a good part of the unpaid subsidy of Rs 58,000 crore or let Life Insurance Corporation raise Rs 40,000 crore to support FCI soon,...
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Centre hikes pulses MSP but experts say too little, too late
-The Indian Express The minimum support price (MSP) for the two pulse crops has been raised by Rs 250 per quintal over their levels in the 2014-15 rabi season. In a bid to encourage farmers to grow more pulses amidst soaring dal rates, the Centre Thursday increased the procurement price of chana (gram) and masur (lentil) planted in the current rabi season by around 10.5 per cent. The minimum support price (MSP) for...
More »Emphasis on cereals prime cause of high pulse prices -Rajeev Deshpande & Dipak Kumar Dash
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The current spike in pulse prices could have been anticipated, but India's cereal-centric food security policies emphasize rice and wheat while dis-incentivizing the production of pulses despite clear trends that show a declining preference for cereals. Even though India's dependency on imported pulses grew as imports rose from 2.7 million tonnes in 2010-11 to over four million tonnes this year, minimum support price-driven procurement and the...
More »A new inspector raj
-The Indian Express The current crackdown on the pulses trade may do more harm than good in the long run. The government has reasons to be concerned over spiralling dal prices — even more so when arhar at Rs 200 per kg has become a major campaign theme in the ongoing Bihar assembly elections. But that does not justify the kind of desperate measures it has resorted to. Not only have...
More »Bad cure for a racing pulse -Ashok Gulati & Shweta Saini
-The Indian Express Scapegoating ‘hoarders’ and ‘speculators’ for the spike in dal prices might have been effective in the 1960s. But today, it is only evidence of a rather sloppy conceptual policy framework. The pulse rate of a normal and healthy human body hovers between 60 and 100 beats per minute. There can be problems if it goes any higher — and a serious threat to life over 200 beats per...
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