-Livemint.com If you want to give a cash benefit, do it without distinguishing between farmers and non-farmers A toothless NITI Aayog is trying to flex its muscles on India’s statistical system. And in doing so, it is destroying its credibility NEW DELHI: The income support scheme announced in the interim budget for small and marginal farmers is both regressive and inefficient, because it neither includes the poorest landless farmers, nor does it...
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The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) -- Lesser than a Solution -Santosh Verma
-Vikalp.ind.in During the past three and half decades, various governments at the centre introduced several crop insurance schemes for the farmers to lessen the risks (partial or full) involved due to natural calamities and crop diseases. In 1985, in its very first attempt, the Government of India (GoI) launched Comprehensive Crop Insurance Scheme (CCIS) with a mandate to a national coverage. In 1999, CCIS was replaced with a new scheme called...
More »Modi Launches a Startling Pre-Election Budget, Massaged by Creative Accounting -Jayati Ghosh
-TheWire.in The aggregate macroeconomic impact of this Budget cannot really be assessed, since the actual fiscal stance is now so opaque. Let’s get one thing clear. This is not an interim Budget, whatever the government finally agreed to call it. The sweeping promises made on both expenditure and taxation fronts are well beyond the limited minor changes that are supposed to be allowed in a vote-on-account or interim Budget. For a government that...
More »Government weighs options for pre-poll farm package -Vishwa Mohan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Will it be Telangana’s ‘Rythu Bandhu’ or Odisha’s ‘Kalia’ scheme which the Centre bets on in its much anticipated farm package ahead of general elections? Apart from these two schemes, the Centre is also looking at some proposals including area-based income compensation and waiving off premium for crop insurance and interest on loans for farmers who pay on time. The Centre’s farm options are due to...
More »Removing the roots of farmers' distress -C Rangarajan & S Mahendra Dev
-The Hindu Steps like limited procurement, boosting productivity and consolidating land holdings can help reduce agrarian distress Recently, there has been active discussion on the strategies addressing farm distress. There are media reports that the ‘interim Budget’ may focus on the farm sector among other things. Agrarian distress, in the present context, is mainly in terms of low agricultural prices and, consequently, poor farm incomes. Low productivity in agriculture and related supply...
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