-TheWire.in The government has failed to provide compensation and relief to farmers for the losses suffered during the lockdown, primarily because it lacks the fiscal space. New Delhi: On Friday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman held her third press conference in as many days to follow up on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of a Rs 20 lakh crore financial stimulus package. After focussing on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), and migrant...
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Most small farmers outside formal credit system. Sitharaman’s announcements won’t help them -Shoumitro Chatterjee and Mekhala Krishnamurthy
-ThePrint.in An RBI report says that despite numerous existing initiatives, at most 40 per cent of India’s small and marginal farmers are covered by formal credit. There is no doubt that agricultural credit is a critical element of both agricultural production and marketing across India. However, during a period of acute crisis, the government needs to bank on channels that are relatively robust and far-reaching. Unfortunately, especially when it comes to small...
More »A plan to revive a broken economy -Harsh Mander, Jayati Ghosh and Prabhat Patnaik
-The Hindu There are clear, implementable steps the Centre can take in fiscal terms to revive the economy and support livelihoods The Prime Minister has just announced Lockdown 4.0. Despite some resulting increase in economic activity, vast numbers of working people will remain without their regular incomes. He also announced a package of ₹20 lakh crore, but this includes already allocated money of ₹6-lakh crore and monetary policy directives to banks and...
More »Job Losses Soar as Modi Govt Continues to Grope in the Dark -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in In April alone, over 12 crore jobs were estimated to have been lost, and unemployment is at over 27% in the beginning of May. After the loss of nearly 80 lakh jobs in March, most of them in the last week after the countrywide lockdown was suddenly announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24, latest data collected by CMIE or Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy through their periodic sample...
More »Centre’s beneficiary count for COVID-19 relief is faulty -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu It fails to note there are likely overlaps in groups of recipients The Centre has wrongly claimed that 39.28 crore poor people have received financial assistance of ₹34,800 under its Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan package so far. A fact check shows that the correct figure is 33.71 crore beneficiaries. Please click here to read more. ...
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