-Down to Earth While the Modi cabinet claims that land rent is included, calculations suggest otherwise The Narendra Modi cabinet made a big ticket announcement of increasing the minimum support price (MSP) of 14 kharif crops on Wednesday (July 4). Farmer agitations all across the country in the past few months have been focused on demanding that MSP be increased so it is at par with 1.5 times the cost of...
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Using MGNREGA Funds to Subsidise Farm Labour is a Recipe for Disaster -Diego Maiorano and Chakradhar Buddha
-TheWire.in It will greatly bring down the poverty reduction impact of the programme, harm the construction of much-needed rural infrastructure and dramatically diminish the labourers’ bargaining power vis-à-vis the farmers. At the recent fourth governing council meeting of the NITI Aayog, the government announced the formation of a sub-group of chief ministers to propose ways of linking the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with agricultural activities. The group is headed...
More »A right to sell at MSP: CACP wants legislation to ensure farmers benefit -Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-Business Standard The government's price-fixation panel backs legalising farmers' right to sell at MSP New Delhi: As the government goes on an overdrive to publicise the hike in Minimum Support Price (MSP), the question is how to ensure that farmers reap the benefits. Unless there is a regular procurement mechanism, MSPs will continue to have a notional value except, perhaps, for rice. The Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP), the body which...
More »1,648 people died every year during 1953-2016 due to floods or heavy showers, shows recent CWC data
The Central Water Commission (CWC) has released the state-wise and national-level annual data on human and economic costs associated with floods or excessive rainfall for the last 64 years at a time when the North East is devastated by nature's fury. That data indicates that on an average 3.2 crore Indians were affected by floods or excessive rainfall every year between 1953 and 2016. Floods or downpours took a heavy toll...
More »India needs both price and income support for farmers -Soumya Kanti Ghosh and Debashis Padhi
-Livemint.com The concerns about the downsides of these schemes are overblown, and they could go some way in alleviating rural woes Since the Union Budget 2018-19, there has been a great deal of discussion in the public domain regarding the health of the rural sector. We believe that the rural sector needs some policy intervention, be it price support or income support. As a case in point, the agri gross domestic product...
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