-The Indian Express Subsidy for crop insurance is preferable to fertiliser, power or farm credit. But Centre should bear the full cost for the scheme. A well-conceived and pro-farmer crop insurance scheme — the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) — is faced with the prospect of going the fertiliser subsidy way. Just as in the latter’s case, the benefits from subsidy on crop premiums, too, seems to be going primarily...
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Rhetoric no salve for farm distress -PP Sangal
-Financial Express Farmers in India (also in undivided India) have generally been poor, and it has not been only the phenomenon of post-reforms period in Independent India, as believed by some. Yes, now it is becoming worse day by day. Farmers’ distress over the past few years has taken a new dimension so much so that political pARTies, without exception, are now using it as an opportunity to win elections by...
More »Centre proposes to hike monthly pensions for the elderly poor, disabled and widows -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu Plan likely to be pART of interim Budget New Delhi: Ahead of the 2019 election, the Rural Development Ministry has proposed that the monthly pensions of the elderly poor, disabled and widows be increased from the current Rs.200 to Rs.800. For those above the age of 80, the proposal is to increase the pension from Rs.500 to Rs.1,200 a month. The Ministry has submitted the proposal, which would have an...
More »Govt forms Niti-led panel to monitor pricing of drugs -Rupali Mukherjee
-The Hindu Business Line MUMBAI: The government on Monday constituted a standing committee headed by Niti Aayog to oversee the drug pricing regime, a move which could clip the powers of drug pricing regulator, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). The Standing Committee on Affordable Medicines and Health Products will be headed by NITI Aayog member (health), and includes chief economic adviser, besides secretary depARTment of health research, director general of health...
More »Setting store on warehouse receipts -Rajalakshmi Nirmal
-The Hindu Business Line If regulation turns supportive and the RBI mandates banks to lend against the electronic negotiable warehouse receipts (eNWRs), they may soon take off Two weeks ago, I was in Suryapet district of Telangana. Here’s a short story of an English-speaking farmer from there, who greeted me with “good afternoon’ as I wished “namaskaram”. Venkateshwara Rao hails from Chinna Nemila village in Maddirala tehsil. He has a five-acre land on...
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