ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Deepak VarshneySubscribe to Deepak Varshney

Unpacking India’s COVID-19 Social Assistance Package

To address the social impact of the COVID-19 crisis, the Government of India extended the scope and benefits of several existing social assistance programmes. This paper assesses who benefited, and to what extent, using administrative data from each of the main programmes included in the package. The analysis shows that implementation constraints, partial uptake, and substitution effects reduced the overall transfer of resources to households relative to budget allocations. There were also substantial disparities in the actual amounts transferred across states. Finally, a rural bias prevailed even though urban informal workers were probably the most affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

PM-KISAN and the Adoption of Modern Agricultural Technologies

The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme aims to provide income support to farmers for easing their liquidity needs to facilitate timely access to inputs. This study, based on 1,406 farmers of Uttar Pradesh, uses a binary choice model to examine the targeting accuracy and correlates of the spending pattern of farmers. Triple difference with matching estimators is used to identify the differential impact of the scheme on the Krishi Vigyan Kendra beneficiaries. Results show that the scheme reached one-third farmers in the first three months of its implementation, and has significantly helped those who are relatively more dependent on agriculture and have poor access to credit. Moreover, the scheme has significantly stimulated the Krishi Vigyan Kendra's impact on the adoption of modern cultivars.

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