-IndiaToday.in Numbers of farmers selling paddy on MSP, total registered acreage and the quantity of paddy sold this year is the highest in last 20 years. More than 92 lakh metric tonnes of paddy procured in 2020-21 in Chhattisgarh. A record number of 95.38 per cent of total registered farmers have sold paddy in Chhattisgarh in Kharif marketing year 2020-21, thanks to farmer-friendly policies implemented in Chhattisgarh under the leadership of Chief...

-The Indian Express Finance Commission has taken a judicious approach in weighing competing needs of Centre and states The terms of reference of the 15th Finance Commission were controversial and contentious. Several state Governments had raised concerns over what they saw as attempts by the Centre to claw back the fiscal space and autonomy extended to them by the 14th Finance Commission. The concerns centred not only on the vertical (between Centre...

-Hindustan Times The data, culled from the education department of Delhi, and civic bodies that run the municipal schools, shows that these children have simply fallen off the map -- the schools say they can’t trace them. Over 166,000 students in Delhi’s Government and municipal schools are missing, the impact of education moving online as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The number is roughly 8.5% of the students enrolled in the...

-The Hindu Even with closures, capex exceeded plan, says Expenditure Secretary Expenditure Secretary T.V. Somanathan said the Government has been very careful and realistic in its expenditure and receipts projections for 2021-22, and that its push for capital expenditure is the largest ever over a two-year period. Excerpts: * You have called it an expansionary budget, but overall spending is just about ₹33,000 crore in 2021-22 over this year’s revised estimates (RE). Also,...

In order to understand why the Union Budget 2021-22 is being termed as ‘transparent’, it has to be read simultaneously with the 15th Finance Commission Main Report for 2021-26. But first, let us discuss 'fertilizer subsidy'. The budget documents for Union Budget 2021-22 show that the spending on ‘fertilizer subsidy’ was slashed from Rs. 1,33,947 crore in 2020-21 (revised estimate) to Rs. 79,530 crore in 2021-22 (budget estimate). However, the budgetary...