Organized retail of packed food and raw food reduces prices of food for urban citizens and pays farmers a better price for the agricultural produce. It eliminates middle men and decision making at every other level. This is not rocket science. However, politicians refuse to do away with the WWII public distribution system in order to retain power at the district level. Well, for one thing, the format of the...

Confusion continues to reign in the debate on microfinance that has unfolded following the promulgation of the Andhra ordinance, soon to be replaced by Andhra Pradesh Micro Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Act, 2010. A key confusion has been that microfinance is a major instrument of poverty alleviation. Going by the available scientific evidence and agreement among scholars, to-date, there exists no compelling study linking the expansion of microfinance to...

Says the bank has also stopped refinancing farm loans Says no NABARD official has visited his office in a year Criticises Milma for deposits in a private bank Cooperation Minister G. Sudhakaran said here on Monday that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) had not been taking the initiative to hold discussions on implementing the Vaidyanathan committee report on cooperative sector reforms and had stopped refinancing farm loans in the...

Even as the media celebrate the Mercedes Benz deal in the Marathwada region as a sign of “rural resurgence,” the latest data show that 17,368 farmers killed themselves in the year of the “resurgence.” When businessmen from Aurangabad in the backward Marathwada region bought 150 Mercedes Benz luxury cars worth Rs. 65 crore at one go in October, it grabbed media attention. The top public sector bank, State Bank of India,...

Fearing a default from Andhra Pradesh-based microfinance institutions (MFIs), whose cash flows have been disrupted by new laws, lenders have asked RBI to ensure stability by bringing the sector under its purview. In a meeting called by the Reserve Bank to discuss funding of MFIs, it asked banks whether the institutions were repaying loans on time and if the end-borrower was suffering because of the credit crunch faced by them. RBI...