Dr. Parveen Kumar
Agriculture in the country is a key sector, contributing more than 17 per cent to the country’s GDP and providing livelihood opportunities for a vast majority of its population. As such, the sector always remains in the spotlight in union budget of the country. This year too on Feb. 01, Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance minister in the second NDA government presented her fourth straight budget for the year 2022-23. Total expenditure is estimated at Rs 39.45 lakh crore. Receipts are estimated at Rs. 22.84 lakh cr. FY’ 23 fiscal deficit target at 6.4% of GDP Vs 6.9%. The Budget 2022-23 looks at taking agriculture on a sustained higher growth trajectory with an emphasis on digital infrastructure, incentivizing investments through public private partnership, promoting sustainability through Green energy and chemical free farming, livelihood generation, enhancing farmer incomes and building climate resilience. The agri sector will be further transformed by leveraging strengths of agri-techs and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). The allocation for Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has increased from Rs 1.18 lakh crore to Rs 1.24 lakh crores. The sector’s share in the overall Budget allocations, however fell from 4.26% in 2021-22 to 3.84%. Reduction in allocation for Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE): The allocation of money to Agricultural Education and Research has been reduced from that of last year. Department of Agriculture Research and Education (DARE) has been allocated rupees 8,513 crore. The largest share from this allocation has gone to Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) with a provision of Rs 5,877.06 crore. The said amount is up from last year’s allocation of Rs 5,561 crore by Rs 315.58 crores. A provision of Rs 455.48 crore has been made for agricultural education in the budget. Rupees 343.30 crore has been kept for animal science, while the expenditure on natural resources management has been estimated at Rs 185.77 crore. Ensuring assured income to Farmers: To ensure that farmers in the country get assured and remunerative price of their produce, the budget has come up with an outlay of Rs 2.37 lakh crore towards direct payments for minimum support price (MSP) to wheat and paddy farmers. These payments would be made over the next year, April 2022-March 2023.Finance minister also announced a plan to promote oilseed cultivation to reduce import dependency and for promotion of millet production with emphasis on exports. Interlinking of rivers: The budget has also allocated a sum of Rs 44,000 crore for interlinking of Ken-Betwa river. This would further benefit about 9.1 lakh hectares of farm land, providing drinking water to 62 lakh peoples and generating 130 mw of power. Five more such projects are under process of implementation. One station One Product: The increased outlay for PM Gati Shakti, including 100 new railways logistics hubs will speed up supply chain, reduce logistic cost, ensure smooth movement of agricultural produce across the country and help in reducing wastage. Railways will develop efficient logistics for small farmers and enterprises with ‘One station, one product’ to help supply chain of local product. The budget will further improve the connectivity; 400 new generations ‘Vande Bharat’ trains with better efficiency are to be brought in during the next 3 years. Besides 100 PM Gati Shakti Cargo terminals will be developed during next 3 years and implementation of innovative ways for building metro systems. PM Gati Shakti Master Plan for Expressways is to be formulated in 2022-23, to facilitate faster movement of people and goods NH network to be expanded by 25,000 km in 2022-23. For this an amount of Rs 20,000 crore will be mobilized to complement public resources. Natural Farming: To ensure that the citizens of the country take a non toxic diet and to promote sustainability, the government is also all set for this by promoting chemical-free natural farming throughout the country with a focus on farmers’ land in 5 km wide corridors along the river Ganga, in the first stage. Support to Millets: Considering the importance of millets in ensuring nutritional security, the year 2023 will be celebrated as the International year of millets worldwide. The budget 2022-23 has announced support for post-harvest value addition for millet products. This is also to enhance consumption and branding of various millet products both at the national as well as international level and also to increase the consumption of Indian millets and their products in the global markets. Agro-forestry: Agro-forestry and private forests get policy boost. Finance minister promises financial support to scheduled caste farmers for taking up agro-forestry and private forest creation. Drones will be used for crop assessment and spraying of pesticides. Start-ups will be promoted to facilitate Drone Shakti for Drone-As-A-Service. Fisheries: Fishery sector has received a boost in terms of the monetary allocations in this budget. One of the few schemes that saw a clear increase in allocations is the Blue Revolution initiative to augment fisheries infrastructure, aquaculture and seafood processing. The Fisheries Department saw its budget almost double from Rs 1,220 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 2,118 crore in 2022-23. Rural Employment: The allocation for MGNREGA which provides 100 days of assured wage employment to at least one member of each rural household scheme is down from the actual of about Rs 1.1 lakh crore to the proposed Rs 73,000 crore. The National Health Mission, National Livelihoods Mission and others have seen minor changes, with several witnessing a cut. Employment Generation: Towards employment generation, initiatives like Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for fourteen sectors for achieving Atmanirbhar Bharat has received excellent response with a potential to create 60 lakh new jobs and additional production of 30 lakh crore during next 5 years. PM KISAN: The Primeminister Kissan Samman Nidhi has been allocated Rs 68,000 crores. The allocation for fertilizer subsidy has decreased from Rs 1.49 lakh crore in the current financial year to Rs 1.05 lakh crores. Rationalization/revamping: The Union Budget 2022-2023 has declared a major revamping/rationalization of centrally sponsored schemes (CSS). Since the last two years, the number of such schemes has been reduced by half. CSSs are totally funded by the central government but implemented by states. In the Budget 2022-2023, the government allocated Rs 4, 42, 781.19 crore for such schemes. According to the Budget document, 130 CSSs spanning all ministries have been rationalized/revamped into 65 schemes. CSSs declared after April 1, 2020 has not been included in the list. The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development that had 19 CSSs is left with only three that include a. Mission Shakti b. Mission Vatsalya c. Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0. Mission Shakti has subsumed 14 schemes, including Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, a major campaign initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, 12 CSSs have been revamped into two schemes; three have been shut down. The two news schemes are: Infrastructure Development Fund and Development programmes (Animal Husbandry). The three to be closed are Dairying through Cooperatives, National Dairy Plan-II and National Dairy Plan. The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has the highest toll 20 CSSs have been rationalized into three schemes viz Krishiunnati Yojana, Integrated Scheme on Agricultural Cooperative and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. The National Project on agro-forestry has been subsumed in other CSS. Pruning the CSSs has been a Union government focus area in recent years. The 15th Finance Commission also recommended rationalization of these schemes.
(The author can be reached at pkumar6674@gmail.com).