Regrettable repeal

This refers to ‘Repeal of farm laws will hurt farmers’ (November 30). It is worth analysing why the well-intended farm laws had to be repealed. The government showed undue hurry in passing them in Parliament. The Parliament as the legislative body was the right forum to deliberate at length and gain willing endorsement from people’s representatives.

When the Opposition parties, a section of the media and agitating farmers’ leaders became vociferous in criticising the laws, the government underestimated their political fallout and failed to devise a convincing communication strategy to meet the misleading campaign against the laws.

And the Opposition parties including those which supported such farm reforms in their public utterances changed their stance to fish in troubled waters.

The present outcome of this political short-sightedness is that the Opposition is now insisting on legal guarantee for MSP also, though they are aware it will benefit only the rich farmers.

YG Chouksey

Pune

Funding start-ups

This has reference to ‘Don’t saddle banks with start-up finance’ (November 30). The new economy firms are part of the system and need to be encouraged to create entrepreneurship and employment opportunities. Banks have a social responsibility to support them. Of course, they have different business models and risks are higher, but as far as predictability is concerned even farm finance has similar uncertainty.

The credit appraisal of start-up ventures need to be done differently with long-term financing and more of promoters’ skin in the game. Banks should improve their risk-management skills with tighter prudential limits. Part-funding in the form of equity may also be necessary.

M Raghuraman

Mumbai

Diversifying risk

No doubt the interest of bank depositors is supreme, but modern banking is tilting more towards risk diversification among its various buckets of lending. Even commercial banks are taking exposure to long term financing in infrastructure and project finance areas.

To mitigate the risks involved in lending to start-ups where the success rate is unpredictable, the credit exposure to these entities is restricted with a maximum cap, besides added cover provided in the form of credit guarantee scheme of the government in case of loan defaults.

Taking into the account the need for humongous lending support, if the credit guarantee scheme is effectively implemented and the claims of banks are settled hassle-free, it would be a great impetus to commercial banks to extend a helping hand to these small entities.

Sitaram Popuri

Bengaluru

Favourable demographics

Apropos ‘Demographic watershed’ (November 30), the news on favourable age and sex ratios is heartening. The fertility rate is flattening and is likely to start dipping soon.

This trend may limit our demographic edge to 20-25 years more. As the average longevity too is growing, care and sustenance of the elderly must reset our social allocations. Retirement age may need to be raised and safety nets reviewed.

Food security, addressing malnutrition for the less affluent child population can be daunting due to its very scale. As would their primary and secondary education.

R Narayanan

Navi Mumbai

Positive change

The population seems to have stabilised and any further decline will affect the replacement rate. The sex ratio seems too good to be true, with women outnumbering men probably for the first time. All the bans on sonography centres to predict the sex of the unborn child also seems to have worked.

Probably the fact that women are no longer looked down as a burden is the biggest cause of the sex ratio seeing a big change. The downside in health can be explained by the lockdown which cut down physical activity drastically.

Anthony Henriques

Mumbai

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