Farm Income To Be Steadied With MSP For Oilseeds, Pulses; Charging Infra To Get FAME III Attention

Inverted duty structure to be rectified in the Budget. Secretaries are missing in key ministries and the additional charge business is keeping the show running.

In other news, ministers to decide on rice export ban and government survey lays bare the informal sector’s suffering from demonetisation, GST and Covid-19.

Budget Likely To Modify PM-AASHA With MSP For Few Pulses, Oilseeds

The upcoming Union Budget for 2024-25 is expected to modify the flagship Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay SanraksHan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA), assuring a minimum support price (MSP) for select pulses and oilseeds through either 100 per cent direct purchase or price deficiency payments, the Business Standard reported. 

Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has repeatedly stressed the Central government’s commitment to the 100 per cent procurement of arhar, urad, and masoor at MSP from all states.

Currently, the sources noted, the scheme’s guidelines unveiled a few years ago restricts the quantum of pulses and oilseeds farmers can sell through it. Read more

FAME III Likely To Set Aside Rs 2,000 Crore For Charging Networks 

The upcoming FAME III scheme to encourage clean transport may give a lift to charging networks, even as the Centre looks to slowly reduce the hefty vehicle subsidies that fuelled an EV revolution in India, Livemint reported. 

FAME III may set aside up to Rs 2,000 crore to encourage charging networks, critical for wider adoption of electric vehicles, officials said. Alongside, the next edition of FAME will hack subsidies for all EV categories, as part of a plan to taper all federal subsidies on EVs.

FAME is short for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles in India. The second edition of FAME ended in March this year. More here

In Move To Lift Local Manufacturing, India May Correct Inverted Duty Structure

India may take steps to correct the inverted duty structure on a number of goods by rationalising levies on several products that are inputs for electronics, copper tubes and pipes, ferro alloys, textile staple fibres and certain chemical preparations to lift local manufacturing, the Economic Times reported. 

The government has drawn up a list of finished products that are subject to lower import duty than the materials needed to make them, or an inverted duty structure.

The commerce and industry ministry has undertaken a cross-sectoral study to rationalise such inverted duty structures to improve India's manufacturing competitiveness and aid domestic manufacture of value-added products. More here

Key Ministries Running Without Secretaries, Some Others Have Other Vacancies

Critical ministries, such as agriculture, housing and urban affairs, and the department of personnel and training (DoPT), are without their secretaries raising concerns about policymaking and administrative efficiency, Livemint reported.

Besides, there are some positions of additional secretary and joint secretary level that are vacant in the ministries of health, consumer affairs and agriculture, and the department of post, among others, as per the portals of the respective ministries.

The absence of secretaries and joint secretaries in these key departments is significantly affecting their ability to function effectively, said a retired bureaucrat. Experts caution that without leaders of the so-called ‘steel frame’, these ministries may struggle with direction, decision-making, and policy implementation. More here

Group Of Ministers To Decide On Lifting Ban On Non-Basmati Rice Export 

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said a Group of Ministers will take a call on lifting the ban on certain varieties of non-basmati rice after considering the demand-supply and price situation, the Economic Times reported. 

India has banned exports of non-basmati white rice since July 20, 2023 to boost domestic supply. “We meet periodically, assess the production of agri produce, the consumption patterns, price in the retail and wholesale market, and we take a balanced decision,” he said on the sidelines of a Ficci event.

Goyal also dismissed concerns on the ban of spices, saying the problem of some spices consignments were “very very” miniscule and need not be exaggerated. More here

Survey Says Informal Sector Jobs, Output Shrank From 2015-16 to 2022-23 

A new government survey has confirmed that the non-farm informal sector shrank in the seven years that ended 2022-23, Livemint reported.

The period saw the informal sector being battered by some of its most disruptive economic shocks, from demonetisation, a chaotic introduction of the goods and services tax, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 2021-22 and 2022-23 reports of the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises, released last week, provided data on the size of the sector at nominal prices.

Analysis by India Ratings and Research shows that in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, the gross value added (GVA) by such enterprises declined 1.6 per cent between 2015-16 and 2022-23. This cost India an estimated Rs 11.5 trillion, or 4.3 per cent of the 2022-23 GDP, over the seven-year period. More here