The Economic Times:Tap the Opportunity in
Global Slowdown
The bullet train deal with Japan shows
how
The high-speed rail project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad has
lessons for other infrastructure.
The project gets 80% of its funding as a
50-year loan from the Japanese, at a rate of interest of 0.1%. The world is
awash भरा हुआ in
liquidity , pushing interest rates down. Developed country governments are
eager उत्सुक to help
their corporate champions find markets for their products and services. The
British government has dispensed प्रदान करना with the
pretence
दिखावा that aid is about altruism दूसरों के हित के लिये जीने का सिद्धान्त and
linked overseas assistance to British economic interests. Turbines for power
plants, radars for airports, heavy machinery for mining and road building,
expertise in town planning and sustainable construction, mass urban transport
systems, anything and everything is available for the asking, provided India
can come up with a credible project that will generate an assured निश्चित return.
That is entirely doable संभव.
In 2016,
Indian companies and markets have a chance to pull themselves up by the
bootstraps
जूता पहनने में सहायक चमड़े का टुकड़ा, without relying निर्भर होना on the benevolence दया of the
global economy . But to do that, they will need support from policymakers in
New Delhi and in states. Between January and December 2015, depending on what
exchange rates you assume, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) made a net
purchase of $1.6-2 billion -the lowest ever in the last four years and less
than a fifth of the annual average for the period. Global investors are spooked डर जाना by a
slowdown in all emerging markets, especially China. Another big reason is the
sudden drop in wealth with oil exporting nations -which run the world's largest
sovereign सर्वश्रेष्ठ wealth
funds -as crude has crashed अचानक गिरावट from
$100 to $30 per barrel. Domestic funds have struggled to fill the gap.
Liquidity
will return if India sets its house in order.Companies are debt-ridden से पूर्ण and
struggling because the domestic reform environment is weak. There is much that
can and must be done. To start with, a new bankruptcy code will help clean up
many corporate balance sheets. But projects have to become viable विकासक्षम,
especially in the infrastructure sector.
The Times of India: Help The Farmer
Budget should shift spending from
subsidies to irrigation
सिंचाई, crop खेती insurance
Finance minister Arun Jaitley and his team have signalled that
agriculture will be a focus area of the next central government budget. This
would be most welcome because the farm sector which provides employment to
close to half the workforce श्रमिक संख्या in the
country is in dire ख़ौफ़नाक straits जलडमरूमध्य. Two
successive bad monsoons and the global crash in commodity prices have singed
the sector badly .States have already sought central assistance सहयोग of
around Rs 40,000 crore to combat संघर्ष drought अकाल like
conditions. With climate change affecting weather conditions with increasing
frequency , uncertainties in the agriculture sector will only go up in the
coming years.
So a core
focus of the next budget should be mitigating गंभीरता कम करने वाला the
growing impact
प्रभाव of adverse हानिकर weather
conditions. One way is to substantially मज़बूती से increase
the share of irrigated area from less than half to at least two-thirds within a
short timeframe. The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana rolled out last
year and plans to spend Rs 50,000 crore over the next five years to extend
irrigation and improve efficiency in usage will not be enough for meeting this
target. So the next budget should ensure that funding is further stepped up to
accelerate
तेज़ी से बढ़ाना the expansion फैलाव of irrigation facilities.
Larger
allocations बंटवारा should
also be made for extending फैलाव drip irrigation
as India now uses up three to four times more water per unit of output as
compared to other countries.
The other
major issue is growing risks in the farm sector as farmers try to increase
output by pushing up investments to maximise productivity क्षमता .
Efforts to mitigate such risks by insuring बीमे से सुरक्षित करना farmers
against crop loss have been too slow, with hardly one-fifth of the cropped area
covered so far. This has to be accelerated by pushing up the budget allocation
for extending insurance coverage many times more than the Rs 2,600 crore
currently provided.
Where
will the money come from? Increasing allocation for substantially extending
irrigation and insurance will require that the government reduce spending on
fertiliser and food subsidies by shifting over to direct cash transfers,
minimising leakages
रिसाव and better targeting. The
budget should also focus on promoting investments in research and development
in the agriculture sector, building more storage facilities and removing
hurdlesअवरोध to the interstate अंतरराज्यीय मार्गmovement
of agriculture products. Build that common national agriculture market promised
in the last budget.
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