1)`Farmers worse off than lowest-paid babus`
(CIF’s representation to the P.M Urging to implement NCF recommendations)

The apex body for farmers’ organisations has stated in a representation to the government that even big farmers were worse off than the lowest-paid government employees. It has charged the government with discrimination against farmers vis-à-vis workers from other sectors.

While the government has taken no more than four months to implement the Sixth Pay Commission report, even going beyond the recommendations, there has been little action on the report of the National Commission on Farmers headed by Dr MS Swaminathan even after 22 months. This commission had suggested measures to ensure that the net take-home income of the farmers was comparable with that of civil servants.

This has been stated in the representation submitted by the Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA) to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It has quoted from the report of the Arjun Sengupta Commission on unorganised sector workers and some studies by the Planning Commission and other organisations to support its contentions.

The Arjun Sengupta report had said that the average monthly income per household from cultivation was Rs 1,578 a month for small farmers and Rs 8,321 for big farmers in 2003. In comparison, the lowest-paid government employee got the pay and perks exceeding Rs 10,000 a month.

The Planning Commission studies have shown that the income ratio for agricultural workers and non-agricultural workers has deteriorated steadily from 1:1.8 in 1950-51 to 1:2.8 in the period 1978-79 to 1983-84 and further to a whopping 1:5.2 in 1998-99 to 2003-04.

The CIFA memorandum, signed by its general secretary Chengal Reddy, has also referred to a study conducted by the Hyderabad-based NG Ranga Agricultural University to point out that a farmer needed to cultivate 15 to 20 acres (6 to 8 hectares) of dry land to earn an income of Rs 4,000 (equivalent to that of a peon) in Telengana and Rayalseema in Andhra Pradesh. In the coastal areas of the state, the farmers needed to cultivate paddy on at least 10 acres (4 hectares) to earn the same level of income. The average farm holding in India is less than 2 hectares.

For the plight of the rural people, Reddy has blamed the apathy of the government towards the farmers, as reflected in the fixation of low minimum support prices (MSP) for crops. He has cited the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture (report No 41 dated 22 July, 2008) to substantiate this plea.

The report had stated that the prices of agricultural produce received by the farmers were lower than the market prices and were often less than the cost of cultivation. The committee had favoured fixation of remunerative prices for the farm produce.

The Swaminathan Commission had recommended that the MSP should be at least 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production. While some relatively less consequential and peripheral suggestions of this commission have been included by the government in its national policy on agriculture, the key recommendations have so far been ignored.

The CIFA has also pointed out that the marginal farmers usually turn landless labourers and the small farmers become marginal farmers during their own lifetime. This amounted virtually to their demotion. The government employees, on the other hand, have been assured at least three promotions during their service.

"Wide, unacceptable disparities in farm and non-farm incomes have occurred mainly because the agriculture produce is underpriced for decades and the surplus amount is transferred to organised sector workers including the government employees, whose productivity does not increase even nominally with successive pay raises," the representation has maintained.

2)Windfall for babus as PM goes beyond Pay Panel

Salary revision for 5 million Central Government employees costing to the exchequer Rs17, 800 Crore annually and additional Rs 29,400 crore by way of arrears from January 2006 and announced that the government has gone "beyond" the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission in increasing their emoluments. The lowest pay and allowances an employee gets is hiked to Rs 10,000 for month.3% annual increment. Three assured promotions in service. Full pension on 20 years’ service.

konda on 16-AUG-08: With in 4 months of submission of report by the Pay Panel, quick decision to revise pay of employees has been taken by the Government with utmost alacrity and commendable speed and the government has gone beyond its recommendations and announced bountiful largesse to them .The study made by the ADB, released recently, revealing that India is paying too much to Government employee:

Study by ADB-08-07-08 "The higher the relative government pay rates, the lesser the economic growth attained," "The high relative government pay rates cost the country in terms of economic growth, while the higher employment share does not seem to have any economic growth impact," "India stands out among the high-pay countries, as it has experienced one of the most pronounced increases in relative government pay rates in recent decades," the study said. 

Government employees are definitely overpaid for their under performance. The attraction for the job is phenomenal. Recently there was a stampede when recruitment for Police SIs was opened and several applicants were injured. One public sector bank received a whopping 24 lakh applications for a few clerical posts. The spectacle is the same for any government post. It is because once a person gets the plum post he is raja for life. This is institutionalised exploitation by doing too little for too much of pay and perks.

While many marginal farmers are demoted as landless labourers and small farmers as marginal farmers and medium farmers as small farmers during their life time, Government have assured three promotions to employees during their service. Can this kind of discrimination be allowed to continue in a socialist democracy?

Agriculture development has been ignored since 1990s–Observations of Standing Committee on Agriculture R41-22-07-08

The focus of our development is more towards raising industrial production and recently on the service sector; this lop-sided growth of our economy is increasing the gap between the rich of the cities & poor farmers of the villages,
Farmer centric policies which can only solve our food security and unemployment problem are not on the agenda of the successive governments,
Ban on export of non-Basmati varieties and a heavy tax burden on export of Basmati varieties of rice, is directly against the interests of farmers, resulting in loss of their income and will also discourage them to grow these crops,
The prices of agricultural produce received by the farmers are lower than the prices of the same prevailing in a free market and are often less than the cost of cultivation, Remunerative prices should be fixed for farmers’ produce,
Food security can be achieved only by making farmer and agriculture centric policies through which farmers are encouraged to grow more food crops which earn them enough income to smoothly run their household activities and perform their social responsibilities.
Develop Special Agricultural Zones for intensive production of food grains,

2) Slowdown in agriculture credit after loan waiver FE 11-08-08

The Reserve Bank numbers for April-May 2008 show growth of commercial credit bank credit to agriculture and allied activities slowed down substantially to Rs 42,745 crore in 2008 from Rs 54,038 crore in 2007 for the respective months. The dip in agriculture credit comes when the overall growth of non-food credit is climbing by a robust 24.1%. This is reflected in industry and infrastructure sector credit off take. Total bank credit to industry went up from Rs 1.41 lakh crore to Rs 1.82 lakh crore in 2008, while that of the small-scale industry than doubled to Rs 60,398 crore. In the case of infrastructure, growth of bank credit shot up from 32.6% to 41.7%.

Neglect of farm credit

Posted by K.R.S.Reddy on 2008-08-11 Credit given out of deposits collected from rural and semi-Urban areas continues to be less than the percentage of credit deployed in metro areas, indicating continued diversion of deposits from rural and semi-urban areas for giving credit in Metro areas. Had credit been extended to the same extent as in Metros, instead of 56% of deposits received from people in rural and semi-urban areas, additional credit to the extent of Rs 2,00,000 crore could have been given in rural and semi-urban areas benefiting mostly farmers and artisans and tiny industries thereby increasing production and income of rural and semi urban people considerably. This benefit was diverted to metro people at the cost of rural and semi urban people. The C/D ratio of NE, Eastern, and Central states is low at 40%, resulting in flow of funds from these regions to western and southern regions. The share of agricultural credit, a productive purpose and essential food supply activity, continues to be low, where as the share of personal loans, consumption based non-productive activity, is twice that of agri credit. Agriculture segment would have got additional credit to the extent of Rs1,15,000 crore had 18% credit was extended to this segment. Thus lower credit deprived agriculture much needed production and investment loans to which would have helped in augmenting agricultural production.

3a) Economy to slow down to 7.7% during 2008-09 from 9% during 2007-08.Agri sector growth to slow down to 2% during the same period from 4.5%. P.M Economic Advisory Committee 14-08-08

3b) The F.M Dismissed concerns about a slowdown in agricultural credit , impressed upon the banks to increase disbursement of auto loans as well as personal loans –A report 14-08-08

Comments>
» Slow Agri growth affecting Agri output:F M should prod Banks to increase Agri credit significantly

Posted by K.R.S.Reddy on 2008-08-14 12:22:09.998784+05:30  
The F.M impressed upon the banks to increase disbursement of auto loans as well as personal loans. He did not ask Banks to increase loans to agriculture even though there is a slow down by may 2008(on y-o-y basis), from Rs54,038 crore(32%) to Rs 42,745 crore (19%).As on May 2008 agri loans are only Rs2,64,787crore (only 12% of net bank credit against mandated 18%) compared to personal loans of Rs 5,28,046 crore.Now which is priority; productive agr loans or non-productive personal loans? FM should ask Banks to increase agri loans to 18% of net bank credit viz; unto Rs 4,00 ,000 crore by March 2009, to help enhance food production. By down playing slow agri credit growth by merely saying that “it has picked up in the month of July and we will only see the comparable and meaningful number only at the end of the second quarter” will not improve the position, unless Banks are prodded to accelerate agri credit and the same is effectively monitored monthly.
The Economic Advisory Committee has predicted a downtrend in agri output during 2008-09 to a mere 2% from a record 4.5% during 2007-08. Therefore, there is all the more need to increase significantly production and investment credit to Agriculture at least by additional Rs 1 lakh crore (by March 2009), to improve agric output during 2008-09 appreciably to meet the growing food needs of our teeming millions.

4) Outlay on farm research scant, says RBI study BL 14-08-08

Notwithstanding the high concern over reversing the decline in agricultural investment, credit and irrigation by the authorities in recent years, public expenditure on farm research and extension services as a share of agricultural output has logged a much slower growth in real terms since 1990. At less than one per cent it is well below global standards, while the figure for research expenditure as share of GDP for the agricultural sector was 2.39 for the developed countries in 1991. For almost two decades this figure has hovered around 0.5 per cent or less.

Shrinking Farm Size: while in 1960-61 over 60 per cent of the cultivated area was operated by farms exceeding four hectares by 2002-03 this figure is less than 35 per cent. 

Smaller holding-size makes it more difficult for the majority of Indian farms to access new technology and adopt more efficient forms of farm production organisation as their capacity to leverage credit is reduced. The slower growth of yield since 1991 may, at least to an extent, is related to this aspect.

Environmental Crisis: Another problem plaguing the farm sector, the study said, pertains to the emerging environmental stress and two aspects of this are loss of soil nutrients and declining water availability. This contributes directly to potential yield loss.

“a diminishing economic base and gathering ecological stress constitute a pincer movement that impinges upon the future of agriculture” Hence it said economic policy must turn to encouraging an active lease market, while extant legislation, dating back to the original land reform, might be a hindrance to this. In some states tenancy is not officially recognised and this could hold back output expansion, the study cautioned.

5) Focus on removal of terrible deprivations in human lives: Amartya Sen: B.S 12-08-08

The reasoned humanity of the justice of nyaya can hardly fail to demand the urgent removal of terrible deprivations in human lives such as appalling levels of continued child under-nourishment, continuing lack of entitlement to basic medical attention of the poorer members of the society and the comprehensive absence of opportunities for basic schooling for a significant proportion of the population. He cautioned that the removal of long-standing deprivations of the disadvantaged people might in effect be hampered when the bulk of the social agitation is dominated by “new problems that generate immediate and vocal discontent, to the neglect of gigantic older problems of persistent deprivation of human lives, tolerated without much political protest”. He pleaded that justice demands that “we make a strong effort to identify the overwhelming priorities that have to be confronted with total urgency”. Prof Sen also gave a simple way to select the priorities for the law-makers: “To think more clearly about what should be done, we have to ask what should keep us awake at night”.

6) Govt mulls ‘lean period’ for rural job scheme in harvesting season F E 11-08-08

In order to tackle the issue of agricultural labour shortage during the harvesting season, the Centre is considering a proposal to introduce a ‘lean period’ under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Many areas of states like Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, UP, and Tamil Nadu have reported shortage labour during harvesting of crops like wheat and rice after the introduction of NREGA in the region.

Comments

NREGS is to supplement income, not to supplant agri labour needs

Posted by K.R.S.Reddy on 2008-08-11 The NRGES is not intended to result in scarcity of labour for agricultural operations. It is meant to provide employment during off- agricultural season. Therefore it should be implemented in such a manner that it doesn’t affect agricultural operations adversely. If the scheme implementation comes in the way of agri operations ,it will not only be self defeating but also increases cost of agri operations thus adversely affecting the people and the cost escalation effect will prove to be more costly than the gains from NREGS. And we may have to import food grains at a very high price. These adverse consequences are not in the interests of the economy as well as the nation. Then again, the economic returns on works undertaken under NREGS need to be evaluated. With all the leakages and poor quality of works and half the works

1) Continued deprivation of credit to Farmers and Small Borrowers: by K.Ramasubba Reddy, Advisor, CIFA

TREND ANALYSIS: DIVERSION OF DEPOSITS FROM RURAL AND SEMI-URBAN AREAS TO METRO AREAS FOR DEPLOYMENT OF CREDIT,  DIVERSION OF DEPOSITS FROM LESS DEVELOPED STATES TO MORE DEVELOPED STATES.DEPLOYMENT OF LESS CREDIT  FOR PRODUCTIVE AND ESSENTIAL SEGMENT LIKE AGRICULTURE AND MORE CREDIT FOR(NON-PRODUCTIVE) PERSONAL SEGEMENT,DECLINING  SHARE OF CREDIT TO SMALL BORROWERS AND INCREASING SHARE OF CREDIT TO LARGE BORROWERS. DECREASE IN THE NUMBER OF RURAL BRANCHES.

These trends were discernible ever since reforms have begun in 1990s, and are not reversed even now when Government avowed policy is inclusive financial and economic growth. Both the RBI and the Governments are silent spectators to the widening gap between rural and urban development, widening income shares of people engaged in agri and non-agri activities. With this trend continuing, slogans of inclusive growth and equitable share in National Income are a mirage and a myth.

Remedial measures:a) Extending more direct credit in rural areas benefiting farmers to the extent of 18% of the bank credit and for rural artisans to the extent of 2.5 % of the bank credit;
b) Expanding credit in less developed NE, Eastern and central regions, C) Increasing share of credit for Marginal and Small Farmers from a mere 3% now to 10% as recommended by the Arjun Sengupta Commission,d) Expanding rural branch network with one branch per population of 15,000, are the important measures urgently called for during XI Plan. Otherwise, the disparities between rural and urban areas and less developed and better developed regions will further widen resulting in social, economic and political tensions.
2) Benefit foregone by farmers by ban on export of rice and price differential of international prices(Rs/Per Tonne) wheat :landed price 16,000-Domestic price;11,000.Rice;Landed price 32,000;Domestic price:32,000 –BS.020808

Comments: Landed price of rice is more than double the price that is obtaining domestically. Yet govt is not willing to pay remunerative price of RS1000 per quintal recommended by CACP. On the other hand, export of rice is banned, thus depriving of farmer double the price he would have got had export of rice was allowed. Thus farmer is robbed and denied even a price recommended by the agency which knows the cost of cultivation data better PM advisory body. This is nothing but sheer exploitation of the farmer .The govt. has double standards. When poultry industry demanded, Govt banned export of maize. When farmers ask for remunerative price for paddy Govt is not willing. This duplicity will certainly boomerang. The Govt is fleecing farmers because they are unorganised. They are becoming organised as evidenced by agitations they are resorting to for input supply. Next it will be scaled up for fair price compared international prices. Better Govt wakes up to this reality and pay fair prices for produce of farmers, before it is too late. 

3) Focus on giving loans for productive purposes

Posted by K.R.S.Reddy on 2008-07-30  F.E 
The problem started since 2000 when banks concentrated more on financing personal and consumption loans than production loans thus neglecting financing of priority sectors including agriculture loaning for which was reduced by half. In some banks personal loans share is almost half of total loan portfolio. Banks vied with each other to give personal loans and diluted appraisal norms. RBI also contributed to this by including housing and education loans as PS advances and remaining silent when credit norms for unproductive loans were diluted. Now both the Govt.and RBI have realised the mistakes they have committed, viz neglect of productive loans and encouragement for un- productive loans which landed us in food scarcity situation and increase in steel and cement prices. At least from now, Govt. should double public investment in agriculture and RBI should ensure banks lend to agriculture up to 18% of net bank credit and to micro and small enterprises to an extent of at least 15% net bank credit. Then both production and employment will improve and loaning for unproductive purposes will decrease. BACK TO BASICS OF BANKING IS CALLED FOR AND URGENT NEED OF THE HOUR.

4) SHGs repaying advances has come down to 85 %-B S 01-08-08

Number of SHGs in the country has increased to 32 lakh from 500 in 1991. It is estimated around 5 crore individuals are benefited through the credit link programme through this SHGs. Of the total SHGs 40 per cent are in the state of Andhra Pradesh with over 16 lakh members. , Intermediaries such as micro-finance institutions are adding 9 to 10 per cent in which the advances has given to the SHGs. For instance a bank lends money at 9 per cent by the time it reaches the beneficiary it will be 15 to 20 per cent due to the additional percentage added by the intermediary. Problem for these SHGs is marketing their produced. Lenders and NGOs should find a solution to address this issue. Lack of marketing infrastructure deprives right value for the products produced by small enterprises and SHG's

5)Rapid economic growth may plunder ecological wealth: Icrier

The country's breakneck economic growth has helped multiply people's wealth, but may leave behind a poor environment for them to live in, fears economic think tank Icrier. "While capital formation in manufactured assets has been fuelling wealth accumulation in the economy, there has been a rise in the degradation of natural capital stocks," Icrier said in its working paper 'Measuring Sustainability with Macroeconomic Data for India'

2) Credit to agriculture declining – it is only half of personal advances Posted by K.R.S.Reddy on 2008-07-29

Credit to agriculture is declining – it is only half of personal advances. Commercial Banks Credit to Agriculture ,as on 23rd May 2008,was Rs 2,64,787,which works out to 11.5% of bank credit as against mandated 18%.Year-on-year growth was Rs 42,745 crore(19.3%),compared to Y-O-Y of previous year growth of Rs 54,038 crore (32.2%).Growth of agri advances is less than growth of personal advances of Rs 72,607 crore and agri credit is only half of personal advances. Growth of agricultural credit at 19% is disappointing compared to previous year y-o-y growth of 32%. It is just about 60% of the growth of personal loans. The share of agri credit in the total annual expansion of credit is only 10% instead of 18%.Similarly expansion of priority sector advances at 18% instead of 40% is also cause for concernThe priority seems to be reversed and priority now seems to be for non-productive loans. Advances to agriculture, to attain target of 18% of net bank credit, has to reach a level of Rs4,00,000 crore by March 2009 and the present level is only Rs2,65,000 crore. The gap to be filled up is a whopping Rs1,35,000 crore. RBI has to positively intervene to get banks going to extend needed credit to agriculture instead of being a mere onlooker taking the role of a passive bystander and blandly reporting statistics. (Data source RBI Quarterly monetary review- 29-07-08) 

2)Finance ministry advised the banks to carefully appraise loan requests and ensure that adequate credit is available to the productive sectors. B S 29-07-08

konda on 29-JUL-08 : F.M advised banks to ensure adequate credit for productive sectors. The growth in credit on y-o-y for credit card loans is 87%, NBFCs is 62%.Petroleum sector credit growth of 63% is mainly to subsidise losses incurred by oil companies. Are these loans for productive and viable purposes? GROWTH RATE IN AGRI CREDIT IS ONLY 19% COMPARED TO CREDIT GROWTH OF 32% IN THE PREVIOUS YEAR. Is agriculture a non productive sector? Let RBI effectively monitor purveying credit instead of purveying statistics.

3)Banks should focus on stricter credit appraisals on a sectoral basis, monitor loan to value ratios- F.E 30-07-08

COMMENTS:» Focus on giving loans for productive purposes

Posted by K.R.S.Reddy on 2008-07-30 
The problem started since 2000 when banks concentrated more on financing personal and consumption loans than production loans thus neglecting financing of priority sectors including agriculture loaning for which loaning was reduced by half. I n some banks, personal loans share is almost half of total loan portfolio. Banks vied with each other to give personal loans and diluted appraisal norms. RBI also contributed to this by including housing and education loans as PS advances and remaining silent when credit norms for unproductive loans were diluted. Now both the Govt. and RBI have realised the mistakes they have committed, viz neglect of productive loans and encouragement of un- productive loans which landed us in food scarcity situation and increase in steel and cement prices. At least from now, Govt. should double public investment in agriculture and RBI should ensure banks lend to agriculture up to 18% of net bank credit and to micro and small enterprises to an extent of at least 15% net bank credit. Then both production and employment will improve and loaning for unproductive purposes will decrease. BACK TO BASICS OF BANKING IS CALLED FOR AND URGENT NEED OF THE HOUR. 

4) India ranks low in financial inclusion: ICRIER- PTI 23-07-08.

India has been placed at the 50th spot, much above Russia but below China, in the index of financial inclusion (IFI) prepared by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).  The index assumes significance as one of the major goals of the 11th Five-Year Plan is to work for financial inclusion and extend the reach of microfinance to meet credit needs of approximately 80 per cent of the population not directly covered by banks.

Comments: That financial inclusion is low in India is well known. Opening more rural branches,  giving access to banking facilities for rural people, providing credit in large measure, to all productive activities in rural areas covering small holders , rural artisans will enhance financial inclusion. Right now finance provided for small farm holders and rural artisans is only 3.1% and 1.2% of net bank credit respectively which is very low compared to the credit requirements of these categories. Arjun Sengupta report recommends 10% of net bank credit to these farm and non-farm activities which means credit extension has to be more than doubled.

5) Chinese farmers' per capita income rises by 10.3% in real terms:  B.S :28-07-08 

(In India income raise of rural people is only 2.6% in real terms) 
Chinese farmers per capita cash income rose to $370 in the first half of 2008, a 10.3% in real terms rise over the same period a year earlier, The growth rate was faster than that for per-capita disposable income of urbanites 6.3%.

Comments: Compare with raise of per capita income of Indian farmers at 2.6% and Increase of per capita income of urbanites  at 8%. During the period 1998-2004 ,per worker income at constant prices was Rs 11,500,where as that of  worker in non-agri sector was Rs 59,900. THUS RURAL URBAN INCOME DISPARITY IS EVER WIDENING IN INDIA. Where is the inclusive growth envisaged in the XI plan? It is on paper only.

6) Inflation affects net incomes of farmers: NCAER -24 Jul, 2008, PTI

As inflation increases, prices paid by farmers for various inputs increase faster than the prices they receive for their products, thereby the terms of trade for farmers deteriorate as the rate of inflation rises. General inflation when accompanied by growth may be associated with a slight increase in the demand for farm output. However, increase is likely to be small due to the low-income elasticity of demand for farm output.
On the other hand, higher marketing margins due to imperfections in the agricultural markets, stirred up by higher wages and various other marketing costs, reduce the demand for farm output at the farm level, NCAER said. These opposing forces suggest that the net impact of inflation in the national economy on prices received by farmers is small in comparison to the impact on prices paid.

Comments: The inflation is now inflamed to 12%. For the week ended July 5, the annual inflation rate for the group of 30 essential commodities including food grains, pulses, edible oils, vegetables, dairy products had declined to 5.74%, compared to over 30% increase in iron & steel, and over 16% in fuels segment. The benefit of even this modest 5.74% increase in the whole sale price of cereals does not reach the farmers, as recent studies by ASSOCHAM and NCAER reveal.Most of the farmers do not have staying power and therefore sell their produce immediately after harvest. Hence the price increase in cereals will benefit the trader and not the farmer. Yet,the farmer has to shell down higher prices while purchasing inputs, pay higher wages to agri. labour and also pay higher prices for his daily needs and purchase of equipment etc. So, willy- nilly, agriculturists are the worst affected class by this runaway inflation. Organised labour is protected by increase in D.A, informal sector labour by demanding and getting higher wages, professionals by hiking their fees, banks by increasing interest rates  on advances, railways by increasing freight rates, air lines by increasing fares, steel industry by hiking price per ton and traders by marking up prices of whatever items they are selling,so on  and so forth. The only hapless class is agriculturists who suffer most and are left high and dry, as remunerative price is not paid for life sustaining food grains produced by them,covering costs and plus reasonable compensation for managerial effort and risks taken.

4)Icrisat releases first red gram hybrid variety BL 17-07-08

Icrisat, released the world’s first cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) based pigeon pea (red gram) hybrid (ICPH 2671) here on Tuesday. The new hybrids could give 30-40 per cent higher yields than the ones being used now.Dr K.B. Saxena, who was the brain behind this breakthrough, said the new technology would break the yield barrier, which had been plaguing Indian agriculture for the past 50 years.” This hybrid, named Pushkal, is suitable for cultivation in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra,” it added. Suitable crop for rain fed agriculture as it was drought tolerant, it needed minimum inputs and produced reasonable yields even in unfavourable agro-ecological conditions.

5) ‘Plan rural job scheme without disrupting farm activities’ BL17-08-09

The Union Government has asked the States to plan it in such a way that the NREGS works should not hamper the farm activity,” Mr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Union Minister for Rural Development. He was answering a query on the criticism that it had become tough for farmers to find labourers during the crucial khariff sowing period. NREGS had raised the wages that were too high for the small and marginal farmers to match up to.
Comments: The NRGES is not intended to result in scarcity of labour for agricultural operations. It is meant to provide employment during off- agricultural season. Therefore it should be implemented in such a manner that it doesn’t affect agricultural operations adversely. If the scheme implementation comes in the way of agri operations ,it will not only be self defeating but also increases cost of agri operations thus adversely affecting the people and the cost escalation effect will prove to be more costly than the gains from NREGS. And we may have to import food grains at a very high price. Can we at all afford loss of agri production in these days of food scarcity?

6) Keep agriculture at the centre stage of the country's development agenda:President PTI 16-07-08

  "The slow growth of farm economics is a major challenge before the policy makers and the scientific community," she said in the foundation day lecture of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research here.   Talking about the pathways for accelerating growth of the farm sector, Patil said, "We must enhance productivity on a constant basis and bring about second green revolution, which along with agro-biotechnology can translate into an ever-green revolution in India."
Comments: A paper published by CIFA has revealed the research stations under ICAR did precious little to bring into use new high yielding seeds. So much money is spent on these research institutions without any corresponding benefit to the farmers. We would urge ICAR to wake up from their deep slumber at least now when the President expressed concern over slow farm growth which is in no small measure on account of ICAR not developing new variety seeds capable of improving productivity