What is There in Budget 2021 For Agriculture ??
As we all aware about ongoing crisis due to covid ,Throughout pandemic it was only agricultural sector which saw positive growth and saves lives of crores of citizens by ensuring food safety ,I will be focusing on how current year's Budget is addressing the change scenario due to multidimensional effects of covid throughout the world .
key aspects of current budget : This year a historic step is taken about the transperancy of food subsidy, Year after year, a substantial part of the food subsidy was being put under the carpet by increasing the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) borrowings — these had crossed Rs 3 lakh crore. No one believed that the budgeted figure of Rs 1,15,570 crore in the 2020-21 financial year reflected the true picture of this subsidy. The FM has revised this figure to Rs 4,22,618 crore, a whopping increase of Rs 3,07,048 crore. The revised estimate (RE) for FY 2020-21 is 3.66 times the budgeted figure, indicating that almost all borrowings of FCI have been cleared.For FY 2021-22, the budgeted estimate is Rs 2,42,836 crore. The minister also needs to be complimented for clearing off the fertilizer industry’s arrears. Against the budgeted figure of Rs 71,309 crore for FY 2020-21, the revised estimate is Rs 1,33,947 crore, an increase of Rs 62,638 crore. For FY 2021-22, things are likely to smoothen with a budget provision of Rs 79,530 crore.The third highest expenditure in the agri-food space is that of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan), which decreased from Rs 75,000 crore in FY 2020-21 to a RE of Rs 65,000 crore; the same amount is now budgeted for FY 2021-22. The allocation for agri-R&D is a meagre Rs 8,514 crore in FY 2021-22 against a RE of Rs 7,762 crore in FY 2020-21. This is bewildering as the marginal returns in terms of agri-growth from expenditures on agri-R&D are almost five to 10 times higher than through subsidies. India spends not even half of what a private global company like Bayer spends on agri-R&D — almost Rs 20,000 crore every year. No wonder our growth momentum in agriculture remains subdued and India keeps spending on freebies with sub-optimal results.India needs to increase its expenditure on R&D to increase agri out put and to develop green supply chain for sustainable agriculture and food security and to truly double farmers income .Overall this year budget proposes a allocation of about 16 lakh crores for agriculture sector which was 15 lakh crore in last financial year ,there is target for increasing agri credits by 10 percent compare to last year also there is good allotment for msp for various crops ,also for developing agri infrastructure there is proposal of additional service tax ,budget also proposes development of new 7 textile parks ,there is increase in basket of crops in operation green earlier it was only for 3 crops now it will be for 22 crops ,there is not so much support for animal husbandry in current year .Also there is nothing new for horticulture and food processing industry .
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