Eighty labourers, both men and women, are at work at Thiruvanduthurai village in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, about 325 km south of Chennai. They are digging a pond - about an acre wide and six feet deep - funded under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or MGNREGS. Outside the work perimeter, two middle aged men look on, worried. P. Murugan and K. Govindaraj are farmers from the...

The countrywide share of corporate retail in food distribution tripled in the past four years when retail food prices showed the greatest increase. THE dramatic increase in food inflation over the past two years has been associated with several surprises. One major surprise has been how the top economic policymakers in the country have responded to it. The initial response was one of apparent disbelief, followed very quickly by the...

Introduction of sugarcane harvesters in Punjab may be the answer to the acute shortage of agricultural labour in the state. The Punjab government has decided to promote harvester use in a big way and has offered a subsidy of 25 per cent on the Rs 1-crore harvester. The sugarcane harvester imported from Australia is useful on all types of landholdings, including small and medium sized landholdings, and is capable of...

The Uttar Pradesh government is expected to soon announce the price at which mills in the state will have to buy sugarcane from farmers. Having received a record Rs 260 per quintal for sugarcane last season, farmers are insisting on a similar payout this season. The figure will be keenly watched because high raw material costs can substantially reduce profitability of companies in a season of bumper sugar production and low...

Uttar Pradesh is not a state readily associated with dynamic economic reform. But the state has taken giant strides in reforming one of the least reformed industries in India: the sugar industry. The country’s second largest sugar producing state after Maharashtra is undertaking an aggressive privatisation of its state-owned sugar mills. It has, just recently, successfully sold off 10 of the 11 operating units of the state’s Sugar Corporation to...