Two reforms India might like to expedite after the Covid-19 crisis is over

A fully-integrated farm market, more local markets and multiple-location ration cards could have alleviated the problems of migrants, farmers, traders, transporters and FMCG firms at the outset

For 60-year-old Islami Begum and a much-younger Pradeep Sharma, both residents of Bamrauli Katara village near Agra, the Covid-19 lockdown has thrown up a new set of challenges that should never have existed had two major reforms currently underway across the country reached their finality.

While, Islami Begum wasn’t able to access rations from a shop in Bamrauli-Katara as she had her name listed in a shop in adjoining Fatehpur-Sikri district, Sharma was finding it difficult to sell his freshly harvested potato to distant mandis in Mumbai and Bengaluru because transporters weren’t willing to ferry the produce over such a