Question: Recently, which institution has launched the first ever Agricultural Marketing and Farmer Friendly Reforms Index?
(a) Ministry of Finance
(b) Ministry of Law and Justice
(c) Ministry of Panchayati Raj
(d) NITI Aayog
Answer: (d)
Related facts:
- The State of Maharashtra achieved first rank (score 81.7) in NITI Aayog’s Agricultural Marketing and Farmer Friendly Reforms Index (AMFFRI).
- The index ranks states on the degree of reforms that they have undertaken in agricultural marketing. The indexing process is based on the Economic Survey 2018-19.
- AMFFRI has a score that can have minimum value 0 implying no reforms and maximum value 100 implying complete reforms in the selected areas.
- NITI Aayog has identified three key areas for reform and is now persuading states to undertake the reforms. The areas identified for immediate reforms are:
- Agricultural market reforms.
- Land lease reforms.
- Reforms related to forestry on private land – felling and transit of trees.
- The proposed index has a wider ambit but the focus is still on reforms, with marketing reforms (25%) and governance and land reforms (20%) carrying almost half of the weight of the parameters in its scoring system.
- Maharashtra has implemented most of the marketing reforms and it offers best environment for doing agri-business among all the States/UTs.
- Gujarat ranks second with a score of 71.5 out of 100, closely followed by Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
- Uttar Pradesh with score of 47.8 is ranked 13th.
- The bottom three States/UT are Puducherry(4.8),Delhi UT(7.3) and Jammu & Kashmir(7.4).
- However, some states such as Bihar, Kerala, Manipur, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Andaman and Nicobar were not included in the ranking as either they did not adopt APMC Act or revoked it.
Links: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/maharashtra-ranks-first-in-niti-aayogs-ease-of-doing-farm-business/articleshow/70071633.cms
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=153145
https://www.thehindu.com/business/agri-business/new-index-to-check-ease-of-doing-agri-business/article25487766.ece