Government grants huge tax exemptions to industries for installing pollution control equipment. This is done to achieve certain social, economic and environmental goals. But it has failed to monitor the working of this subsidy regime. While many industries do achieve the desired pollution control results, many others blatantly flout norms. …
Beyond Jethiabhai Basawa’s mud house in the foothills of Aravali extends a 75-hectare patch of barren land. It was once lush bamboo forest worth Rs 9 lakh. After joining the JFM programme in 1996, his village Munkapada in Rajpipla district had nurtured it in the hope of making some money. …
Khan Market in boulevard Delhi is said to be the most expensive real estate in India, maybe even in the world. But in this richest shopping destination, buyers do not want to pay for parking their vehicles. The shopkeepers’ association has taken the local city council to court, saying it …
In the lush forested uplands of Koraput, Domu Matpadia, a Paraja tribeswoman, is coming face to face with modern farm technology. A representative of Charoen Pokphand, a Thai agribusiness multinational, is telling her how to grow its hybrid maize seeds that the state government has given her free along with …
This report analyzes the political economy of two important fields of agricultural policy in India: fertilizer supply and electricity supply for groundwater irrigation. These inputs are essential to food production and agricultural development, which have been core areas of concern for policymakers in India since Independence. Following the food shortages …
NANDAN Nilekani has just submitted his report on how the Centre should give direct fertiliser subsidy to farmers, but Odisha has already rolled out a scheme to reimburse maize farmers their cost of fertiliser. This will benefit about 45,000 farmers picked for a special maize scheme. Under the scheme, the …
Achanta, a small village in Andhra Pradesh, hit the headlines in 1967 with a record rice yield in the kharif or monsoon crop season. It was the time of the Green Revolution. N Subba Rao, a farmer from the village, harvested three tonnes of paddy from just one kilogramme of …
A High Powered Committee set up by the Central government has suggested that allocation of natural resources should go to the highest bidder. This 13-member committee, headed by former finance secretary Ashok Chawla, submitted its recommendations in the first week of June. It was set up in January in the …
In April this year, Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra made history. One of its villages became the country’s first to win the right to sell and harvest bamboo. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh handed over transit pass books to residents of Mendha Lekha village, allowing them to exercise community forest rights over …
Wind energy has been the poster child of India’s renewable energy programme. Data released by the government shows the staggering pace at which wind farms have been added across the country. But most of them deliver only a fraction of their generation potential, according to the Union Ministry of New …
The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has written to states to include bamboo in the list of minor forest produce (MFP) and to take steps to facilitate its use, sale and management by communities. The letter, dated March 21, is addressed to all chief ministers. It acknowledges the …
REELING under routine 12-hour power cuts daily, Nepal has launched an ambitious multibillion rupees initiative to add 2,500 megawatts (MW) of electricity by 2016. Addressing the country’s Parliament on March 23, Bharat Mohan Adhikary Deputy Prime Minister who also holds the finance and energy portfolios, declared the next four-and-a-half years …
There is a good deal of ill-informed enthusiasm about “conditional cash transfers” (CCT) among Indian policy makers, based on a superficial understanding of the Latin American experience. In Mexico, Brazil, and other pioneers of this approach, conditional cash transfers were developed to bring a fringe of poor households into the …
As I write this piece, the finance minister has dispatched the Union Budget 2011. The press is busy reflecting the views of business and industry lobbies, as they quibble over duty exemptions, insist on financial stimulus and other incentives, and cry for big-ticket reform—foreign direct investment in retail and insurance. …
THE government should offer assured income to farmers and shield them from erratic weather conditions. These are a few of the demands of farmers’ groups from the Union Budget 2011-12, which will be tabled in February-end. To address the declining growth in agriculture, the government should allocate more funds for …
Pre-budget discussions on misuse of subsidised diesel in cars has hit a crescendo. Public angst has already brought this to a boil. Political ire is also sharper this year, with Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh condemning the use of subsidised diesel in luxury SUVs as “criminal”. Will the Union Budget …
Latin American countries were the first to flirt with the conditional cash transfer model. It evolved in response to the economic crisis of the 1990s. Many governments found that in the face of the crisis the poor were not availing themselves of education and health services. At the same time …
Madhya Pradesh is set to overhaul its public distribution system. It has decided to issue PDS users in the state with biometric cards so that no one can impersonate or fake identity. It will also replace food grain with food coupons. In August last year the state signed a Rs …
It looks like work half done. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) launched a scheme to make India’s rural kitchen smoke-free by using less biofuel in its improved biomass cookstove. But it forgot to formulate a sound marketing strategy and did not factor in the project’s investment cost. …
AFTER scuttling talks on transfer of technology in the recently concluded climate change conference in Cancun, the US now wants China to stop its clean energy programme. The US, on December 22, filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) that China is unfairly helping its domestic wind power …
