• It is not the first time in independent India that a budget has been resented with an eye to helping farmers, nor will it be the last. Ever since the first five-year plan, the country has been trying to help the farmers, but even 60 years later they are not much better off than they were then.

Let’s examine the main reason. It has been said by our past leaders, and by at least one present leader, that the money allotted for any particular cause hardly ever reaches it. Once the middlemen take charge of things, the funds diminish like an ice cube in the summer heat. Thus, unless and until we tackle corruption at every level, no amount of money is going to solve any problem in India.

A complicated affair

n This refers to two reports ‘Why loan waiver won’t stop farmer deaths’ and ‘More suicides’ from Vidarbha. Interestingly, these suicides took place within days of the budget announcement of the loan waiver for farmers. That announcement overlooked the basic problems of small and marginal farmers: market price of their produce, better agricultural infrastructure, availability of farm loans on easy terms and repayment schedules, etc. Without taking the above factors into account, no loan waiver, no matter how big, will substantially improve the lot of our farmers.

Too many services

• Shishir Gupta’s article ‘They could rule India’ calling for “administrative reform” in the context of the 6th Pay Commission recommendations, is timely. But Gupta could have been a little more elaborate as well as pointed and focused. If the political executive at the Centre is determined, the first thing that should be done is to deny primacy to the Indian Administrative Service whose members are forging ahead at the expense of other services.

... contd.