Restoring rural cash flows

Low food prices hurt cash availability in the rural economy, and loan waivers make that worse

“Bazaar mein paisa nahin hai” (there is no liquidity in the market) has become a common refrain of distributors and wholesalers and, in particular, is heard in any discussion on agricultural markets. It is a phrase that makes little sense at first. Sales should just be driven by demand and supply after all; what does money have to do with it? But you need money to facilitate transactions, and the informal economy, which accounts for more than 40 per cent of the country’s GDP, only runs on cash — that is, physical currency. That nearly all of agriculture is informal