-The Economic Times State levies on grain purchase by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) will reportedly push up the Centre's food subsidy bill by Rs 10,000 crore this fiscal year. This is absurd and untenable. High taxes and commissions - 14.5% in Punjab and 10.5% in Haryana - on the minimum support price (MSP) of grain jack up the costs of procurement, drive private trade out of these markets, and set...
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No One Killed Agriculture
-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...
More »Is the rural theme losing its charm?-Krishna Merchant
-Live Mint Realized prices for the farm sector continue to soften even though the government has raised the minimum support prices by over 20% Like every year the government has hiked minimum support prices to help the farmers realize good returns in early June, but India’s rural growth story is expected to run out of steam because of falling realizations of farmers and limited policy support, according to a recent report by...
More »Devinder Sharma, food and trade policy analyst interviewed by GOI Monitor
IRONY RUNS its play every year in India as food grains rot in godowns while 23 crore people go hungry every day. GOI Monitor talks to food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma on the issues stalking agriculture and public distribution One of the reasons for surplus food not reaching the needy is that states are not picking up the grain. Why is this happening? Food grain procurement and distribution is...
More »Foodgrains risk rot-Richard Mahapatra
No place to store seven million tonnes of procured foodgrains As the monsoons advance, the food ministry is desperately looking for shelters. On June 21, KV Thomas, the Union food minister, admitted what many feared the past two months. Nearly seven million tonnes of foodgrains procured by the government in the current season may perish due to non-availability of storage space. This is 50 per cent more than Uttar Pradesh's total...
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