-The Indian Express Karnataka’s experience shows success depends on taking along all stakeholders. The government of India launched the National Agricultural Market Scheme in July 2015 in 585 markets and has, since April 14, started e-trading on the platform. This is in line with the Union Budget’s target to double farmers’ incomes in six years. To be sure, a doubling of incomes by 2022 would require them to grow at an annual...

-The Indian Express Substantial number of interest subvention scheme loans are diverted to non-agricultural uses. Government must switch to an income-support subsidy regime The Union budget for 2016-17 has provisioned Rs 15,000 crore on account of interest subvention for short-term agricultural credit, up by Rs 2,000 crore over the revised estimate for FY16. The mere shifting of this line item from the department of financial services to the department of agriculture...

-The Hindu Business Line India’s ambitious targets can be met without compromising the financials of discoms, as is feared India’s goal of having 100 GW of solar power by 2022 has already generated a lot of interest, and scepticism. But it’s even more far-reaching part pertains to the fact that 40 GW out of this is going to be based on distributed energy generation, namely solar rooftop systems. These solar rooftop systems could...

-Business Standard Instead of addressing systemic problems in agriculture, farm politics in the state is about how much money the government can offer the farmer as a dole The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), led by Parkash Singh Badal and son Sukhbir, was in a dilemma a year before the 2012 Assembly elections in Punjab. The Akalis had ruled Punjab since 2007 but no party had ever returned to power for a second...

The budgetary support to interest subvention scheme has increased by almost 14 times between 2006-07 and 2016-17. However, the much-touted subsidised short-term credit scheme provides little help to the small and marginal farmers, apart from tenant farmers. According to the Committee on Medium-term Path on Financial Inclusion, which submitted its report in December 2015, the interest subvention scheme suffers from 3 types of defects: i. Subsidised credit may not be...