In this year's budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has essentially tried to consolidate the gains from the initiatives he had launched during the previous two budgets. Thus, in agriculture there is no new initiative except increasing the target for agricultural credit to Rs.5,75,000 crore during 2012-13. This represents an increase of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from last year. The interest rate of four per cent recommended by the National Commission...

-The Hindu   The ambitious and controversial Unique ID scheme — Aadhaar — received a double boost in this year's budget: not only did Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee sanction Rs. 1,758 crore to enrol 40 crore more residents, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also emphasised that the scheme would soon become the main channel through which people could access a wide variety of budget benefits. “I propose to allocate adequate funds to complete...

Food subsidy allocation in the budget for 2012-13 is way short of what is required for the implementation of the proposed National Food Security Act, despite a categorical assurance by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the government would “fully provide” food subsidy to administer UPA's flagship legislation. In fact, the regular food subsidy requirement has been cut. While declaring that the government proposed to phase out subsidies in fertilizer and petroleum...

The Economic Survey has warned that more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking, leading to a bigger urban-rural divide and threatening national food security.  "Achieving minimum agricultural growth is a prerequisite for inclusive growth, reduction of poverty levels, development of the rural economy and enhancing of farm incomes," the Survey has said.  But it offers no path-breaking solutions on how to meet...

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee ushered in a regime of cash transfers for the payment of subsidies for food, fertilizers and kerosene, along with social welfare payments, by accepting the recommendations of a panel headed by Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India. The recommendations, submitted last month, had prepared a blueprint for transferring cash directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries by linking these to their unique...