With agrarian distress having become acute in the past two years, Union finance minister Arun Jaitely has sought to provide a roadmap for the turnaround in the weather dependent agriculture and rural
With agrarian distress having become acute in the past two years, Union finance minister Arun Jaitely has sought to provide a roadmap for the turnaround in the weather dependent agriculture and rural economy.
Mr Jaitley on Monday proposed almost doubling allocation to Rs 44,485 crore and raising credit target to a record Rs 9 lakh crore for the agriculture sector. Additionally, Mr Jaitley stitched a strong rural-agri script of the economy by announcing an enhanced budget allocation of over Rs 8,200 crore for rural development, including Rs 38,500 crores for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Of the Budget allocation for the 2016-17, Mr Jaitley has provided Rs 15,000 crore for interest subvention on farm credit, Rs 5,500 crore for crop insurance scheme, Rs 815 crore to promote dairy and allied sector, and Rs 500 crore to boost pulses output. Additionally, he also imposed a Kisan Kalyan cess at 0.5 per cent on all taxable services from June to mobilise resources for agri-initiatives.
Giving a strong financial teeth to the government’s slogan to double farmers’ income by 2022, Mr Jaitley said soil health card will be provided to all 14 crore farmers by March 2017. He also stated that an unified e-agri market would be launched on April 14.
While only 40 per cent of the cultivable land has so far access to irrigated waters, Mr Jaitley sought to give a robust backing to expansion the network of irrigation by earmarking a corpus of Rs 20,000 crore. The fund will help the Pradhan Mantri Sinchai Yojna get off the ground soon.
In a bid ensure adequate and timely flow of credit to farmers, Mr Jaitely said that against the target of Rs 8.5 lakh crore in 2015-16, the target of agricultural credit in 2016-17 will be all-time high of '9 lakh crore.
Besides, he said that in a bid to reduce the burden of loan repayment on farmers, a provision of Rs 15,000 crore has been made in the budgetary estimate of 2016-17 towards interest subvention.
Incidentally, the total budget of the Agriculture Ministry has risen sharply for 2016-17
Giving a strong financial blueprint for the economic turnaround of the rural areas, Mr Jaitely proposed a sum of Rs 2.87 lakh crore to be given as grant-in-aid to Gram Panchayats and municipalities as per recommendations of the 14th
Finance Commission. “This is a quantum jump of 228 per cent compared to the previous five-year period,” Mr Jaitley said, while adding: “The funds now allocated, translate to an average assistance of over Rs 80 lakh per gram panchayat and over Rs 21 crore per urban local body. These enhanced allocations are capable of transforming villages and small towns. Ministry of Panchayati Raj will work with the states and evolve guidelines to actualise this.”
Noting that till April 1, 2015, a total of 18,542 villages were not having electricity, Mr Jaitley recalled that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his last Independence Day speech had said that the remaining villages will be electrified within next 1000 days. He said that 5,542 villages have been electrified till February 23, which is more than the total combined achievement of previous three years.
He also announced sanction of Rs 8,500 crore for Deendayal Upadhayaya Gram Jyoti Yojna and Integrated Power Development Schemes. Emphasising that the country needs to derive greater benefit from its demographic advantage that is dominated by youths, Mr Jaitely flagged the need to spread digital literacy in rural India. “Of the 16.8 crore rural households as many as 12 crore households do not have computers and are unlikely to have digitally literate persons. We have already approved two schemes to promote digital literacy: National Digital Literacy Mission; and Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA).
“We now plan to launch a new Digital Literacy Mission Scheme for rural India to cover around 6 crore additional households within the next 3 years,” he said.
