The Union Budget on Thursday, 1 February, played up the agriculture sector, with an increase in funds channeled towards crop pricing and structuring market reforms to benefit farmers.
Seeking a paradigm shift from an earlier era of farming, which was production-centric, the Finance Minister invoked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ to say that the government will now work towards increasing farmer income.
The Minimum Support Price of all crops is to be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the production cost. The 'Jai Kisan' move in the final full-fledged budget of this Modi Sarkar makes Rs 11 lakh crore available for rural credit.
We want to help them produce more, while simultaneously helping them realise higher prices for their produce.Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister
Presenting the Budget for the next fiscal, Jaitley said this measure would go a long way to realising the government's goal of doubling farmers' income by 2022.
Jaitley announced that a mechanism would be set up in a manner where the Niti Aayog would sit down with the state government and the Centre to ensure that the MSP was set as per the decided norms.
The government has also proposed to set up an Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore, which will focus on developing the agricultural market. This will help in developing close to 22,000 rural agriculture markets, the finance minister added.
Jaitley also announced a Rs 10,000 crore infra fund for the fisheries and animal husbandry sector.
On the food processing front, the government has doubled its investment from Rs 715 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 1,400 crore in 2018-19. The government has also planned a cluster-based development plan for the horticulture sector.
By increasing allocation to programmes such as roads and housing, the government eases pressure on the rural economy by providing job opportunities outside the agriculture sector.
Will India's farmers be pleased with the Union Budget 2018?
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