-Economic and Political Weekly In the wake of the central government’s minimum support prices hike for kharif 2018–19, the state government in Madhya Pradesh implemented a variant of the deficiency payments system called the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana for compensating the Farmers when market prices fell below MSP. Besides the problems of long delays in payments to Farmers, large transaction costs that Farmers incurred due to multiple registrations, and the disposal of...

It is being said by economists that unlike the issue of low food production that gripped Indian agriculture for long in the past, the present problem is about Farmers not getting remunerative prices against the crops that they are growing. According to farmer leaders, the policymakers are too late to realise that bitter truth. As a result, there is a growing disenchantment in the rural hinterland against the ruling government...

-The Hindu In addition to reforming the credit system, agriculture should be made profitable Rural agrarian distress is firmly at the centre of the national discourse today, triggered by the recent Assembly election results in the Hindi heartland as well as continuous farmer agitations in the past two years (picture). Just a month ago, the Farmers’ march in Delhi highlighted the reality of their deprivation, anger and resolve. Quite remarkably, their presence...

-TheWire.in The government has to evolve policies suitable to a particular state and fine-tune them according to local needs. ‘Nothing succeeds like success,’ first written by Sir Arthur Helps in Realmah in 1868, is going to guide political parties while they draft manifestos for the next parliamentary election. It seems that the Rythu Bandhu (RB) scheme – also known as the Telangana model of direct investment support (DIS) to Farmers – has...

-Financial Express Farm loan waivers—of more than Rs 850 billion in FY18 and FY19, announced by various state governments—are the flavour of the season. This can affect credit offtake and induce further stress for banks and amount to another agrarian crisis. Farm sector NPAs accounted for 16% of banks’ advances under the priority sector lending in October 2018. Post the early waiver-announcements, credit growth in agriculture and allied activities has been...