India, its agriculture lending a helping hand during the pandemic!

 India's agriculture has hit a new high when the entire country is under lockdown and the industry has hit the rock bottom.Kharif sowing as on 5th Sep20 has reached 1095 lakh hectares which is 6% more than what was the sown area in kharif season 19-20.The acreage of paddy has grown by 8% to 396 lac hec.over previous year.The acreage under Oilseeds has grown by 12% to 195 LH; Pulses by 5%  to 137 LH; Cotton by 3% to 129 LH and Coarse cereals by 2% to 179 LH.This has been facilitated by 9% increase in rainfall during June-Sep 20 to 795mm.

All five summer grown Oilseeds has seen higher than anticipated increase in their respective MSPs  and better procurement during the initial months of Covid pandemic phase.The increase in Minimum Support Prices including that of Paddy announced at the beginning of Kharif season in june 20 has really helped in increasing the sowing area and in augmenting the revenue of the farmer.

That apart, India has witnessed a 23% increase in farm exports dominated by Rice and Sugar, in the Q1 of Fy 20-21. These are all heartening news from the agri sector.

However the worrying patches, in the otherwise bright outlook,are the outstanding dues of over Rs.14.2K Cr. of Sugar Mills in UP to the cane growers. The State Govt has raised the FRP(Fair & Remunerative Price) by Rs.10 on an average as a policy measure during this cane crushing season, starting Oct 1.Sugar Mills have approached the Govt for a subsidy to pay the farmers in order to tide over the Covid induced difficulties.

Modi Govt has also constituted a Agri Infra Fund of Rs.1 lac cr. The Infra Fund is for catalysing the Agri-infra development and help build pivotal infrastructures like warehouses, cold storage, and nurture farm assets. This will bring about a increase in Agri share of GDP in the economy from 15% approx and thus improve the livelihood of those dependant on agriculture.(link GDP).

Modi Govt has promised doubling of farmers' income  by 2022 which is a daunting task ahead and Govt. is well focussed on this with far reaching structural changes made in the last few months by amending Essential Commodities Act and by liberalising farm trade , land leasing for agriculture across the country.

Now the country is looking forward to the Rabi season.

Inflation, Monetary policy and India

 The minutes of the recent meeting of Monetary Policy Committee  of RBi which were released this week, contain some interesting mentions. One of the news columns said that RBI minutes mention 'uncertainty' 12 times, 'growth' 43 times and 'inflation' 147 times It has expressed concern over inflation and it seems to be valid as CPI has remained above 6% which is more than the tolerance limit of RBI. Alongside, India is experiencing severe GDP growth pangs as its IIP has remained in the negative territory in the first quarter and in July also. Services sector is in a deeper mess except of course ITES, SAAS etc. which have been affected to a lesser extent. It looks like only Agri sector has not been impacted adversely so far ,as the progress of monsoon has been satisfactory and the spatial dispersion also fairly good.

The RBI Deputy Governor Mr.Michael Patra had said : "If inflation persists above the upper tolerance band for one more quarter, monetary policy will be constrained by the mandate to undertake remedial action, including an immediate and more than a proportionate response to head off the build-up of inflation pressures and prevent it from getting generalized." So, to sum it up ,we have classic case of "stagflation"- a combo of GDP slowdown and inflation.!

CPI in India has a higher weightage for food and fuel indices and these two are certainly not amenable to monetary policy measures. In India fuel price is driven more by Govt . policy measures and it is feeding into inflation with its rippling effects on the rest of the economy widespread.When pandemic is restricting economic activities profiteering becomes rampant in vegetable and food prices. When the supply chain and free movement of people and commodities happen, the inflation tendencies will come down. Cost push inflation of food prices will not listen to monetary policy signals in the short term in Indian conditions. As India is driven more by cash , there is a quite a lag in food inflation responding to monetary policy measures, if at all it is significant. May be hoarding and black marketing of these vegetables,cereals ,staples etc. may come down a little bit.However Govt. initiatives through Essential commodities and anti-hoarding sticks used by Govt. through other means incl. emergency imports may be more effective in the short term to bring down food prices.

When the economy is awash with liquidity, the prices in general have tendencies to go north .More so when the supply constraints remain elevated due to lockdowns,e-passes and uncertainties compounded by fear for life and livelihood affecting the income. In these circumstances. RBI should look at high CPI as extraordinary during the pandemic period and should start looking at Core inflation now and then revert back to CPI only after the pandemic is seen plateauing.In the meantime, RBI may seek a temporary amendment for its inflation targeting, switching to Core inflation in times of extraordinary circumstances like a pandemic,global financial crises etc. and then have a glide path back to CPI inflation targeting after the crest of the crises is over.

Immediate prescription for demand stimulus!

Sri. Krishnamurthy Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor to Central Govt,yesterday, has gone on record saying that further demand stimulus measures will be announced after vaccine becomes available. Why should we link stimulus to vaccine availability is not clear. What kind of vaccine he is expecting and if the vaccine falls short of his expectations whether he would not allow roll out of stimulus?

It may become too late to wait till then.Why because, the common man has started saving his meagre earnings due to his fear about his future earnings and not due to Covid pandemic per se.In order to allay his fear about his employment and future earnings, Govt must sacrifice some near term revenue and announce some economic incentives  for kick starting the economy.What better place to start than with Indirect Tax cuts.

Auto sector is the biggest in manufacturing in terms of GDP and reducing GST on it from 28% and converge it with Revenue Neutral Rate(RNR) of 18% will give a huge boost to demand, and thereby to the generation of employment.The multiplier effect will be huge on the rest of the economy with ripple effects cascading throughout the economy.Difficult times demand drastic steps in terms of revenue sacrifice by Govt in the near term.The Govt.will get back more than half its sacrificed revenue by way of huge jump in volumes of goods and services produced.The feel good factor this can generate will negative the fear over the pandemic and will give a greater fillip to PM's call for "Atma nirbhar Bharat" and "Make in India" initiatives.So, one should not wait for Vaccines to announce this.We must do it on war footing.

We have anecdotal examples at hand. Like Mr.Mukesh Ambani bringing in huge FDI even during Covid without waiting for it to end, the Govt. must take a cue from his proactive action and give this relief to the economy.Thiruvalluvar also says "தூங்குக தூங்கிச் செயற்பால் தூங்கற்க தூங்காது செய்யும் வினை."(Sleep over such actions as may be slept over, but not over such actions which require quick actions)

 This calls for immediate action on the ground to kickstart demand and to restore the confidence of common man in his future earnings, income, and employment.