Sitharaman embellishes budget proposals for agri-stimulus
The revised tariff policy has been cleared by a group of ministers (GoM) and it is likely to be implemented within a month, power minister R. K. Singh said. The policy provides for steps like penalty for unscheduled power cuts by discoms. "The tariff policy which had been sent to Union Cabi-net, was referred to an informal GoM. That GoM has cleared it. So we propose to take it to the next Cabinet (meeting),” he said.
The decision of Vedanta's promoters to take the firm private by buying out shareholders at Rs 87.50 a share is "opportunistic and the price does not reflect the fundamental value of the equity", Institutional Investor Advisory Services said. The promoters will have to offer a significantly higher exit price if the bid is to succeed, it said. Last week, Vedanta Resources said it will buy back Vedanta shareholders at Rs 87.50/share.
The country's foreign exchange reserves surged by $4.235 billion to $485.313 billion in the week to May 8 on account of rise in the foreign currency assets, according RBI data. In the previous week, the reserves had increased by $1.622 billion to $481.078 billion. The reser0ves had touched a life-time high of $487.23 billion in the week to March 6. In the reporting week, foreign currency assets rose by $4.233 billion.
New Delhi, May 15: The country is estimated to achieve an all-time high foodgrains production of
295.67 million tonne in
2019-20 crop year, the fourth consecutive year of record production, buoyed by good rains, the agriculture ministry's latest data released on Friday said.
According to the data, the estimated output of foodgrains this year is up
3.67 per cent over the yearago period and has even crossed its target of 291.10 million tonne, which it had set before the beginning of the 2019-20 sowing season.
Total foodgrains production includes crops grown during both kharif (summer) and rabi (winter) seasons. At present, harvesting of rabi crops is in the final stages amidst the
Covid-19 crisis.
This is the fourth consecutive year-on-year higher output of foodgrain since
2016-17 crop year (JulyJune). The previous record was 285.21 million tonne in the 2018-19 crop year.
"The cumulative rainfall in the country during the monsoon season (June to September, 2019) had been
10 per cent higher than the long period average. Accordingly, the production of most of the crops for the agricultural year
2019-20 has been estimated higher than their normal production," the ministry said, releasing the third estimate of production.
Among all crops, the output of wheat—the main rabi crop—is estimated at an all-time high level of
107.18 million tonnes in
2019-20, up from 103.60 million tonne previous year.
Similarly, the output of rice—the main kharif crop —is estimated to be a record 117.94 million tonne this year, higher from
116.48 million tonne last year. At the same time, the production of coarse cereals is estimated to be a record 47.54 million tonne as against 43.06 million tonne in the said period. Production of maize is pegged at a record 28.98 million tonnes this year, up from 27.72 MT in the
2018-19 crop year.
The finance minister embellished some of the budgetary announcements while coming up with a Covid-19 package for agricultural and allied sectors. Most announcements were intended at the medium to long-term development of agriculture and allied activities.
"Largely the announcement was like a policy document than an immediate solution. Many initiatives have been already mentioned in the budget. We will have to see the details to understand how much are part of the budgetary provisions and how much are new fund allocations,' said Siraj Chaudhry, MD & CEO, NCML.
Last budget had allocated a total of Rs 1.60 lakh crore for agriculture, irrigation and allied activities. As part of the stimulus, minister on Friday announced financing facility of Rs 1 lakh crore for funding agriculture infrastructure projects at farm-gate and aggregation points and this will be given to primary agricultural cooperative societies, Farmer Producer Organisations, agriculture entrepreneurs and startups. The budget also had talked about Viability Gap Funding for setting up efficient warehouses at the block/taluk level, without allocating a certain amount for this.
Similarly, both stimulus and budget had announced the government's intend to grow fisheries export to Rs 1 lakh crore. While the budget did not specify the allocation, the stimulus allocated Rs 20,000 crore and expanded the scope of infrastructure development—Rs 11,000 crore for activities in marine, inland fisheries and aquaculture and Rs 9,000 crore for infrastructure like fishing harbours, cold chain, markets, etc. New fishing vessels, traceability and laboratory network also were added.
In order to promote horticulture, budget had proposed 'one product one district' wherein one district will focus on one horticulture product. This will take care of the marketing, branding and export of the product. This has been modified where now a region will focus on one product in 'cluster' approach.
Both the stimulus and the budget had emphasized on bee cultivation, while the stimulus made an allocation of Rs 500 crore. The stimulus package allocated an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund of Rs 15,000 crore and Rs 4,000 crore for herbal cultivation.
"The stimulus package has newly announced Rs 10,000 crore for unorganised micro fund enterprises which need technical upgradation to attain FSSAI food standards, build brands and marketing," said Chaudhry.
There could be some overlap and these medium to long-term allocations will be made in a staggered manner, said Ajay Kakra, leader, food and agriculture, PwC India.