-Newsclick.in Additional funds for MSMEs and MGNREGA are going to create enough jobs, but the economy will remain in doldrums. There has been much mutual patting on the back and self-congratulation, after the Narendra Modi government announced two policy measures that could have a direct impact on job creation. These were: a special credit line of Rs.3 lakh crore for MSMEs (medium, small and micro enterprises) and an additional allocation of Rs.40,000...
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Most small farmers outside formal credit system. Sitharaman’s announcements won’t help them -Shoumitro Chatterjee and Mekhala Krishnamurthy
-ThePrint.in An RBI report says that despite numerous existing initiatives, at most 40 per cent of India’s small and marginal farmers are covered by formal credit. There is no doubt that agricultural credit is a critical element of both agricultural production and marketing across India. However, during a period of acute crisis, the government needs to bank on channels that are relatively robust and far-reaching. Unfortunately, especially when it comes to small...
More »Have Daily Wage Earners Been Betrayed By Biometric Authentication? - Newsclick Team and Road Scholarz
-Newsclick.in The Public Distribution System is an essential social security measure, especially during a crisis like Covid-19, but biometric authentication is a roadblock. Over the past few weeks, the situation for daily wage earners has been particularly dismal. A telephonic survey with over a 100 people in rural areas of six states (Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh) by Road Scholarz, conducted in two phases (26-31 March and...
More »Small Farmers, Big Crisis, and SMS is no Solution, Say Farm Leaders -Afzal Imam
-Newsclick.in The lockdown has got the government talking about agri ‘reforms’ again, but the exploitation of India’s weakest farmers continues unchecked. It is a cruel irony that in the sixth week of the nationwide lockdown, the government is talking up omnibus agriculture “reforms” as if they can mitigate the growing distress in rural India. Reforms, no doubt, implies stricter compliance with online registration and payment rules, more focus on market-based pricing, and...
More »Impact of COVID-19 on Agricultural Workers -Navpreet Kaur and Amanpreet Kaur
-Vikalp.ind.in The unplanned countrywide COVID-19 lockdown has resulted in widespread distress to both principal classes among the rural population namely the peasants and agricultural workers. Peasants suffered in the first place from crop losses due to unplanned lockdown induced delay in harvesting of mechanised crops. Apart from this an additional problem for peasants was the elevated fluctuation in prices (fall in nominal prices more often than not) of both crops and...
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