-The Indian Express Covid-related crisis offers NDA government opportunity to increase work days, entitlements under the employment guarantee scheme. In a recent article (‘Credit where it isn’t due’, IE, June 10), Union Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar described the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as a “failing scheme” before 2014. MGNREGA under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was by no means perfect, but when the National...
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High rates, low demand: Stressed MSMEs can’t tap into Govt relief -Sunny Verma
-The Indian Express Viable companies, with good credit history, are able to raise funds, but the most needy among the MSMEs are facing a double whammy: slump in demand and lack of finance. Banks have started disbursing funds to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises under the 100% Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month but for many firms, hit hard by the pandemic lockdown, credit is...
More »Lockdown further impoverishes those who were living on the edges of existence even during normal times, finds a new report
A recent survey that was conducted through telephonic interviews among 1,405 respondents across the states of Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan and Jharkhand reveals the precarious conditions of workers nearly 45 days after the announcement of COVID-19 lockdown. The report entitled Labouring Lives: Hunger, Precarity and Despair amid Lockdown tries to understand the extent (and depth) of job loss and hunger 45 days after the lockdown. Hunger and...
More »Urjit Patel is back -- as chief of key economic think tank
-The Indian Express Patel replaces former bureaucrat Vijay Kelkar, who chaired NIPFP for almost six years. He is scheduled to join June 22 and will have a four-year tenure, NIPFP said in a statement. Almost 18 months after his fractious and early exit as Reserve Bank of India Governor, Urjit Patel was Friday appointed chairman of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), India’s premier economic think tank. Patel replaces former...
More »The Great MSME Stimulus Muddle -Kulwinder Singh Sethi
-Newsclick.in The Rs 3 lakh crore credit guarantee scheme for micro, small and medium enterprises is unclear, contradictory and practically difficult to implement. The scheme may create more problems than it solves. On May 12, in his televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan or the “campaign to make India self-reliant,” comprising what was claimed to be a Rs 20 lakh crore package to...
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