-The Pioneer Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan here on Saturday announced that farmers in the State will get interest-free loans. After ending his 24-hour fast observed to protest the hike in fertiliser prices over the last one year, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told mediapersons, “This zero per cent rate of interest would be applicable for loans given to farmers since April 1 this year.” When the Congress was in power, farmers used...

Amidst the raging politics on petroleum pricing, a report has established that the country was losing Rs. 87,500 crore because of poor roads and tolling systems annually. The figure gains significance against the backdrop of desperate attempts by the Union government to curb the subsidy outgo on petroleum products that puts a drain of about Rs. 1.38 lakh crore on the exchequer. Going by the report, prepared by IIM-Calcutta on behalf of...

India Inc. was aghast at the recent report of a parliamentary committee that recommended that a new draft land acquisition law limit occasions when the government may intervene to acquire land for use by private firms. But in a paper published in the Economic and Political Weekly last month, Delhi University economics professor Ram Singh laid out data that supports the committee’s recommendations. Mr. Singh argues that government-driven land acquisition is generally...

Desired outcomes can be reached through a series of ‘imperfect’ small initiatives What is to be done? How can we untie the Gordian knot that has so entangled the political economy of petroleum product prices? This is the question that now exercises our most experienced politicians and our ablest economists. Most well informed people know that a country that imports 80 per cent of its oil requirements cannot de-link itself from the...

Most states now levy greater tax on petrol than the central government, without having to share the subsidy burden. After last week’s increase in prices, state sales tax/VAT on petrol is more than central excise in most cases. The central government levies a fixed excise duty of Rs 14.78 on every litre of petrol. But, states levy an ad valorem tax which, in absolute terms, increases with every price increase of...