-The Hindu Rather than just increased budgetary outlays, farmers need plans that will rescue them from crop failure Similar to the last two Budgets, this year’s pro-agriculture intentions are palpable through increased outlays to the agricultural sector and initiation of various programmes. They seem impressive, but closer scrutiny shows that the measures may be of little help to stem the tide of agrarian distress. There are some real challenges confronting three...
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Private hospitals making profits of up to 1,737% on drugs, consumables and diagnostics: Study -Rema Nagarajan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: An analysis of bills from four reputed private hospitals in Delhi and NCR by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has revealed that they are making profits of up to 1,737% on drugs, consumables and diagnostics and that these three accounts for about 46% of a patient’s bill. The analysis, released on Tuesday, noted that “the major beneficiaries of profits in all these cases because of...
More »To Harvest Enterprise -Lola Nayar
-Outlook A tax holiday is expected to push more farmers to turn entrepreneurial The Budget’s announcement of a five-year tax holiday for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) with a turnover of up to Rs 100 crore came as a relief to the thousands of farmers who are members of around 4,000 such companies in the country. In December 2017, a sizeable number of farmers gathered at a national conference organised in Pune were...
More »There's No Reason to Be Confused on How to Calculate the Right MSP -R Ramakumar
-TheWire.in The Swaminathan Commission was clear in its recommendations, and the rationale offered by the NITI Aayog to rule out the use of comprehensive cost is dubious at best. Finance minister Arun Jaitley had announced in Budget 2018-19 that his “government has decided to keep MSP [minimum support price] for the all unannounced crops of kharif at least at one and half times of their production cost”. This announcement set off a flurry...
More »With Latest MSP Promise, the False Narrative Surrounding Costs and Farmer Incomes Continues -Ramandeep Singh Mann
-TheWire.in The need of the hour is to set up a farmer pay commission, which can fix a minimum assured income of a farmer household. About halfway during the budget speech – while announcing the government’s plans for dealing with India’s agrarian crisis – finance minister Arun Jaitley made a rather bizarre statement. AppaRently, according to Jaitley, the Modi government has already provided more than 50% margin over cost of production for...
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