-The Economic Times The government is pushing ahead with long-awaited reforms to boost finances of cash-strapped power utilities and to reduce food subsidy by raising the price of sugar in ration shops, but the cabinet meeting to consider these moves has been deferred to next week. Sources said the government was also considering a proposal to increase the dearness allowance for central government employees by about 7%. This should come as a...

A moratorium is not the magic bullet that can slay Bengal’s fiscal demons, several economists have said, pointing out that postponing the inevitable will be of little use unless backed up by a revenue mobilisation road map. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday set a 15-day deadline for the Centre to announce a three-year moratorium on the payment of interest on the loans Bengal had taken. “A moratorium on repayment obligations can...

The National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development, or Nabard, has started lending directly to infrastructure projects out of its own resources for the first time in 30 years, in an attempt to diversify its activities and make itself relevant at a time when the dynamics of the rural market are changing.  Essentially a refinance bank till recently, Nabard has created a Rs 1,000-crore special window for lending to build core...

-The Pioneer   Three more debt-ridden farmers committed suicide in Kerala in 24 hours till Monday morning taking the total number of farmers ending life due to financial problems in the past two weeks in the State to seven.  Farmers Kunhikrishnan (50) and KK Joseph (48) of Wayanad district committed suicide by hanging while Chandran of Palakkad district ended his life by consuming poison. All of them had pending repayments of huge loans...

An ambitious scheme to make higher-education loans more attractive to poor students has failed to meet its target because of inadequate marketing and lack of coordination among various agencies. The scheme, launched in 2010 by the human resource development (HRD) ministry, gives full interest subsidy (a student will not have to pay the interest for the loan he or she avails) to students from families earning less than Rs.4.5 lakh a...