The Union Budget 2020-21, which was presented by the Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 1st February, 2020 has failed to impress civil society activists and farmers' rights groups (click here and here). Through their press releases and notes, members of CSOs were demanding as well as suggesting the Union Government for hiking the budgetary allocation for schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Pradhan Mantri...
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Health sees minuscule increase; govt to privatise district hospitals -Sumi Sukanya Dutta
-The New Indian Express The proposal, mentioned in the Budget, has raised doubts. NEW DELHI: The idea to privatise district hospital — on which the Centre’s top think tank Niti Aayog is still trying to build consensus — was declared as the official policy of the Modi government on Saturday. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech, said that district hospitals will be attached with private medical colleges on public-private...
More »Employees' unions oppose govt plan to sell shares in LIC
-PTI Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will be listed as part of the government disinvestment initiative. LIC employees' unions on Saturday opposed the Centre's plan to sell a part of its shares in the state-run insurance behemoth through an initial public offer (IPO), insisting that the move is "against the national interest". Please click here to read more. ...
More »Examining the FM's plan to double farmers' income in two years -Ashok Gulati
-The Indian Express The FM’s other ideas for agriculture, especially on Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), which she repeated this year, need to be tested before it becomes a national policy. In her Budget speech, Nirmala Sitharaman spelled out sixteen measures to reboot agriculture and re-affirmed the Modi government’s resolve to double farmers’ incomes by 2022. Agriculture is categorized by her as “Aspirational India”. All these sixteen measures are broadly in the...
More »Deposit insurance cover raised to Rs.5 lakh
-The Hindu The first increase in 27 years assumes significance in the wake of the crisis at PMC Bank Mumbai: The government has decided to increase the insurance cover for bank deposits to ?5 lakh from ?1 lakh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her Budget speech. This is the first time since 1993 that the deposit insurance cover has been raised. The Finance Minister assured that there was a robust mechanism in...
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