FM’s Budget focus will be to boost farm, infra sectors

With finance minister Arun Jaitley all set to present the last full Budget of the NDA government before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on Thursday, the government is likely to keep its focus on boosting agriculture and infrastructure with an eye on wooing the rural poor, and investing in big ticket projects to bring in more private investments.

Setting up of a smart food mission and a land bank corporation could be in the offing in the 2018- 19 Budget, sources said. Keen to woo the rural votebank with just a little over a year left for the 2019 polls, the Narendra Modi government is learnt to have finalised some major initiatives in the agriculture and infrastructure sectors.

After high- level parleys with the agriculture ministry and the Niti Aayog, the finance ministry is learnt to be seriously considering setting up a smart food mission, under which nutricereals could be integrated into the public distribution system for greater market support.

Also, in a possible major telecommunications gift to the rural sector, highly- placed sources said at recent meetings on the Budget within the Niti Aayog and PMO, a proposal to use white space technology to ensure “last- mile” Internet broadband connectivity in villages may also be announced.

White space is basically unused broadcasting frequencies in the spectrum which can be used for expanding Internet broadband in far flung areas.

Accusing Odisha’s ruling BJD of “rampant misuse” of government machinery and adopting “devious” means to ensure its victory in the upcoming Bijepur Assembly bypoll, the Opposition BJP on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to transfer a number of officials for a fair election. A BJP delegation submitted a memorandum to the EC, levelling charges against the state government.

The delegation included Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, party general secretaries Bhupendra Yadav and Arun Singh and spokesperson Sambit Patra. The memorandum said the Odisha government had given “inducements” to influence voters which compromised the impartiality of the election process. BJP leaders claimed that with the byelection in mind, the BJD government in the last two or three months had announced schemes worth over ` 1,250 crore without budgetary provisions aimed at boosting its poll prospects. The party demanded that all 270 booths in the Assembly constituency be declared “sensitive” and CCTVs be installed not only in the booths but also in the vicinity to prevent any untoward incidents.

The BJP demanded the transfer of the district collector and SP besides a number of other officials with immediate effect to prevent them from “acting as party agents” for the February 24 byelection.