Speaking on the agriculture sector while presenting the Union Budget 2021-2022 today, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government is committed to the welfare of farmers.
- She said that the MSP regime has undergone a change to assure price that is at least 1.5 times the cost of production across all commodities.
- She also highlighted that Rs. 75,060 crore has been paid to farmers for wheat procurement in 2020-2021. The number of wheat growing farmers that were benefitted increased in 2020-21 to 43.36 lakhs as compared to 35.57 lakhs in 2019-20.
- For paddy, the amount paid in 2013-14 was Rs. 63,928 crores. In 2019-2020 this increased Rs. 1,41,930 crores. In 2020-2021, this is further estimated to increase to Rs. 172,752 crores. The number of farmers benefitted increased from 1.24 crores in 2019-20 to 1.54 crores in 2020-21.
- In case of pulses, the amount paid in 2013-2014 was Rs. 236 crores. In 2019-20, it increased to Rs. 8,285 crores. Now, in 2020-2021, it is at Rs. 10,530 crores, a more than 40 times increase from 2013-14.
- Early this year, Honourable Prime Minister had launched SWAMITVA scheme. Under this, a record of rights is being given to property owners in villages. Up till now, about 1.80 lakh property-owners in 1,241 villages have been provided cards. During FY21-22, this will be extended to cover all states/UTs.
- To provide adequate credit to our farmers, the agricultural credit target has been enhanced to Rs.16.5 lakh crores in FY22. We will focus on ensuring increased credit flows to animal husbandry, dairy, and fisheries.
- We are enhancing the allocation to the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund from Rs. 30,000 crores to Rs. 40,000 crores.
- The Micro Irrigation Fund, with a corpus of Rs. 5,000 crores has been created under NABARD, We are doubling it by augmenting it by another Rs. 5,000 crores.
- To boost value addition in agriculture and allied products and their exports, the scope of ‘Operation Green Scheme’ that is presently applicable to tomatoes, onions, and potatoes, will be enlarged to include 22 perishable products.
- Around 1.68 crores farmers are registered and Rs. 1.14 lakh crores of trade value has been carried out through e-NAMs. Keeping in view the transparency and competitiveness that e-NAM has brought into the agricultural market, 1,000 more mandis will be integrated with e-NAM.
- The Agriculture Infrastructure Fund would be made available to APMCs for augmenting their infrastructure facilities.
She further added that the early PM Garib Kalyan Yojana amounted to nearly presenting 5 “mini budgets” in 2020.
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