₹750B gives Indian farmers new hope
abu dhabi — The Indian government has boosted the agricultural sector and offered a new ray of hope to distressed farmers with a ₹750 billion initiative, a panel of experts said while analysing the federal budget in Abu Dhabi.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) Abu Dhabi Chapter held a seminar in which experts hailed Narendra Modi government’s recent scheme to transfer ₹6,000 directly into farmers’ bank account. This will be done in three installments and will benefit some 120 million farmers at a cost of ₹750 billion.
The Indian Institute of Finance’s director, Aman Agarwal, said that farmers are the backbone of the country. “India lives in villages. This budget and the previous one have laid the foundation to empower farmers to go forward and feed our bellies. Some of the farmers are living in abject poverty. This amount is meant for them. This sort of regular income gives them hope,” Agarwal said.
Mahindra & Mahindra chief economist, Sachchidanand Shukla, said India is collectively rich but individually poor and that the government has done well to cater to the needs of the marginalised farmers.
“You have about ₹11 trillion being given through agricultural credit. There is about ₹3 trillion worth of subsidies and another ₹3 trillion by way of rural schemes. Despite this, you see farm loan waivers, which don’t address the core issue of farmers. But giving money directly to the farmers will give some respite. Is ₹6,000 good enough? You need to take into perspective the money that is already pumped into the rural economy; it is not substantial but still addresses some of the issues,” Shukla said.
ICAI Abu Dhabi Chapter vice chairman, Neeraj Ritolia, felt that this will boost the rural economy.
“In my opinion, ₹6,000 isn’t a substantial amount for any farmer to have a better life but a corpus of ₹750 billion will come back into the economy,” Ritolia said and also noted the need to create new job opportunities for young India.
Former chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes, B.M. Singh, said that it was time India focused on the aspect of human resource development. “Indians go abroad not because of better opportunities
but lack of them in their own country. We haven’t concentrated on human resource infrastructure. We have to focus on this otherwise will miss the advantage of having the largest young and capable population. China showed the world what it could do with a young and qualified population,” Singh added.
Fund manager at SBI Mutual Fund Sohini Andani said India’s growth outlook was positive and there was no better market to invest than back home. She noted people should stay invested for longer period in equity markets to yield better returns. “Long-term fundamentals from growth perspective look good. A seven per cent GDP growth for India is quite good. If we maintain current inflation level of below four per cent, then a seven per cent growth is actually good for people instead of high inflation and 8-9 per cent growth.”