Do it yourself

The much publicized and even more widely criticized Rs20trn Self Reliant India economic recovery package has laid significant emphasis on the farm sector reforms. The following 10 key promises have been made as part of the package. 1.     Essential Commodities Act to be amended to enable better price realization for farmers by attracting investments and making agriculture sector competitive. 2.     A central law to be enacted to provide for inter-state trade and framework for e trading of agriculture produce. 3.     The government to facilitate appropriate legal framework for an enforceable standard mechanism for predictable prices of crops at the time of sowing (some sort of contract farming or forward pricing mechanism). 4.     Financing facility of Rs.1Lakh Cr to be provided for funding Agriculture Infrastructure Projects at farm gate & aggregation points (Primary Agricultural Cooperative S...

In past 50 days of lockdown, I had a chance of interacting with numerous professionals, investors and businesspersons. The general environment is that of anxiety, fear and pessimism. The promise of a meaningful economic stimulus by the prime minister seems to have rekindled some hopes. Though greed usually accompanies hopes, as of this morning, the fear still continues to be the dominating factor in influencing the investment decisions. In my view, the following three are the primary sources of rising hopes: (a)    The prospects of total collapse in economic growth and consequent high stress in the financial system is prompting RBI for an aggressive monetary easing. Easing inflation and government’s resolve to bring back the economy on growth path is also helping the sentiments. (b)    There is abundant liquidity in the financial system. As of 6 May 2020, banks had deposited over Rs8.6trn in RBI's reverse repo window @3.75%. The banks have be...

In one of his recent interview, Brian Coulton, the Chief Economist at Fitch Ratings, emphasized that the persisting credit squeeze in the Indian economy may hurt the economic growth much more than the present estimates. Brian cautioned that the GDP growth in FY20 could slip to 5.5%, much below the current RBI and government estimates of 6%+ growth. For records, the Indian economy grew at the rate of 5% in the first quarter (April to June 2019) of the current fiscal year, the slowest in more than 6 years. The slowdown was visible in all sectors of the economy including agriculture, manufacturing and services. Within services, the growth in finance, insurance and real estate sectors was cited as particularly worrisome, as it highlighted poor credit conditions. Besides, the credit availability, the high cost of credit is cited as one of the constricted factors. Despite 135bps cut in policy rates in the year 2019, the real rates are found to be still elevated, constraining the gr...