Budget may sharpen focus on rural infra
THE FINANCE MINISTER HELD A VIRTUAL ONLINE CONSULTATION WITH EXPERTS FROM THE AGRICULTURE SECTOR AND FARMERS’ REPRESENTATIVES
NEW DELHI: The Union Budget for FY24 is expected to focus on the agriculture and farm sector with enhanced budget and focus on rural infrastructure, investments in supply chain, technology, crop diversification, and matters concerning the climate crisis, two people aware of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s pre-budget consultations with stakeholders said on Tuesday.
“That is the sense we got,” one of the people present at the meeting said. Sitharaman on Tuesday held pre-budget consultations with stakeholders of two groups separately. Her third pre-budget consultation took place on Tuesday morning with the experts on agriculture and representatives of the agroprocessing industry.
Later in the day, she interacted with experts from the financial sector and capital markets.
She started her pre-Budget consultations on Monday with two separate groups representing industry, infrastructure and issues pertaining to the climate crisis.
“Allocations for agriculture are expected to jump significantly in 2023-24,” a second person said.
In 2022-23, the government allocated a budget of ₹1,24,000 crore for the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (DA&FW) for implementation of various agricultural development and welfare schemes aiming to increase agriculture production and farmers’ welfare across the country.
It allocated an additional ₹8,513.62 crore in FY23 to the Department of Agricultural Research and Education for development of new high yielding, biotic and abiotic stress tolerant, insect resistant and bio-fortified varieties of seed.
The finance minister held a virtual online consultation with experts from the agriculture sector and farmers’ representatives.
The discussions focussed on investments, feedback from farmers’ representatives and climate issues, the first person said.
“We asked for allowing voluntary carbon credits from farms to be traded globally to enable farmers to get highest value. Credit is available only when practice is changed. Urgent because farmers already changing practices won’t be applicable for credits. It’s like being penalised for being good,” said Ajay Vir Jakhar of the Bharat Krishak Samaj.
Bharatiya Kisan Sangh’s Mohini Mohan Mishra, who was part of the consultations, said: “The finance minister discussed the pace of infrastructure development in agriculture, especially in agro-food processing, start-ups and export units.”
Mishra said the finance minister wanted to know about the needs and opportunities in millets, or coarse cereals, which the government has accorded high priority.
The UN will celebrate 2023 as the International Year of Millets, a proposal mooted by India and endorsed by a majority in the UN General Assembly.
Apart from Sitharaman, the pre-Budget meeting on agriculture was attended by Union minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary, finance secretary TV Somanathan, secretaries from other departments of the finance ministry, and chief economic adviser Anantha Nageswaran, the finance ministry said in a tweet.