-The Indian Express While Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not mention PM-Kisan in her Budget speech, she tried to assure farmers about the minimum support price (MSP). The Agriculture Ministry did not spend its full budget during 2020-21, leading to a reduction in the allocation in the revised estimates (RE) for the current financial year and a lower outlay for the next one. In Union Budget 2021-22, the two departments—Department of Agriculture,...
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Future of Indian agriculture and small farmers: Role of policy, regulation and farmer agency -Sukhpal Singh
-Down to Earth blog The distress among small farmers in India is market-driven to a large extent in both ways — too much protection (minimum support price) or too little. The question of future of Indian agriculture has been around for some time now sINCe the agrarian distress and crisis in the sector. It has become important in the context of the spate of recent reforms that INClude permitting private wholesale markets,...
More »India needs to look beyond the 137% spending hike to fix its public healthcare -Arjun Srinivas and howindialives.com
-Livemint.com Much of the INCreased spending will go towards preventive aspects of healthcare, with the health ministry by itself not gaining much even after the pandemic. India needs to do a whole lot more to strengthen its health infrastructure In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a 137% INCrease in allocations on “health and well-being" for 2021-22, to ₹2.24 trillion. Embedded in that declaration was a definitional change: it also...
More »Agriculture infra cess may hit state revenues -Sayantan Bera
-Hindustan Times/ Livemint.com “There is an immediate need to improve agricultural infrastructure so that we produce more, while also conserving and processing agricultural output efficiently,” Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech. The government on Monday introduced a new agriculture infrastructure development cess (AIDC) on petrol, diesel and several other imported items. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured it won’t place any additional burden on consumers. However, following the introduction of the cess, states...
More »School education takes biggest hit: Govt cuts proposed education spending by Rs 6,000 cr -Ritika Chopra
-The Indian Express No announcements on recovering learning loss, support for children at risk of not returning to school. The government’s proposed spending on education next year has been cut by Rs 6,000 crore at a time when the Covid-19-induced disruption is expected to have exacerbated students’ learning loss and school dropout rates. The total education budget was slashed by 6 per cent from Rs 99,311 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 93,224 crore...
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