Tackling farmers’ woes

Even after seven decades of getting Independence, India has not been able to address the problems faced by its farming community. There have been several recommendations by experts but none has solved the problems of farmers. As the Vice-President and the RBI opined recently, loan waivers are not a solution to the woes of farmers as they would affect the entire recovery process in banks. Loan waiver is mainly a vote-mobilising instrument.

The Election Commission should ban the inclusion of loan waivers by political parties in their election manifestos. The distress in farming is a recurring experience as Indian agriculture is still monsoon dependent. Even when the yield is good, farmers face several problems like inadequate MSP, shortage of storage facilities, inadequate insurance coverage, unequal distribution of compensation in case of crop loss, intervention of middlemen, inadequate financial support, and supply of low-quality seeds. To address these, the government should: set up a separate fund for distressed farmers, which can be used to compensate farmers for the difference between cost of cultivation and output; establish agricultural marketing committees in every village and town; provide interest-free loans; and ensure employment during off-season. Politicians are treating farmers merely as vote banks, forgetting their welfare after coming to power.

Multinational companies, especially those from the US, are hurting the lifestyles of the younger generation by allowing them to work from home. Forced to work at odd hours, which are suitable to MNCs, the youngsters end up eating unhealthy junk food. For peaceful and healthy living, there must be a divide between office and home. On cannot enjoy the work culture and atmosphere of office if one works from home.

Even for small business, it is better get an office accommodation near the house either owned or rented. The real danger is one can never have job satisfaction working from home as there would be feeling that one has not worked hard enough.

New Delhi

JEE, NEET entrance

The announcement made by the Centre about the annual JEE Main and NEET will be conducted twice from next academic year should be music to the ears of aspirants as it gives them the chance to improve their scores . The new rule allows the examinees to appear for JEE Main in January and April and for NEET in February and May for the academic session to commence in August of that year. Choice is left to the examinees to choose either of the months for to take the entrance test or to repeat the test if the score in the first is not to expectations. The decision to go paperless by switching over to digital initiatives is welcome.

Bengaluru

Asset management/reconstruction companies, usually purchase the NPAs (non-performing assets) at a discount and issue market securities to raise working capital. In a largely risk-averse economy, encouraging retail investments in such securities would be a tough ask. Amid a lacking competitive market for distressed assets and unsuccessful attempts by experienced/resourceful lenders to minimise haircuts, recovery of dues against secured bad-loans, by selling-off collateral/pledged securities at fair valuations, is easier said than done. With stringent/penal regulations in place, the investors would expect decent returns on AMC/ARC instruments, especially when the liquidity/marketability of mortgaged/pledged securities backing bad-loans is soon expected to improve. After all, the AMCs/ARCs envision NPAs on account of aggressive lending, not to be a problem but a source of revenue in the near future. Unless, maybe the optimism needs a re-construction as well.

New Delhi

In the kharif acreage table that appeared in commodities page on July 7, the data in columns 1 and 2 were interchanged. The error is regretted.

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