Joining Forces

The Budget Showcases a Master Plan for Rural and Agricultural Development by Dovetailing the Financial Resources Available With 10 Ministries.

- Joe C. Mathew

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has achieved a remarkable feat by announcing a slew of measures for rural and agriculture sectors in the Union Budget 2018/19. One-third of his Budget speech covered just these two sectors. He also came up with the announcement that the government is planning to spend ₹14.35 lakh crore towards agriculture and other livelihood programmes in rural India.

It may seem that the Narendra Modi government is striving to achieve what has not been attempted till now. When compared to the central government’s total annual budget of ₹24.42 lakh crore, the amount earmarked for these two sectors looks quite substantial. But there the promise ends.

Almost 84 per cent of the promised expenditure (see Flush With Funds) is to come from non-budgetary resources, including ₹11 lakh crore institutional credit from financial institutions. What the government has done is to club together the rural sector and agriculture related programmes of 10 ministries to come out with a farm-rural package. “The biggest difference in approach is that it is a comprehensive, multidimensional package. Farmers’ income depends on a whole lot of things. The package covers it all,” says Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman of Niti Aayog.

He explains that the government is moving away from unidirectional programmes that merely aim to increase farm produce to those that cover the entire gamut of agriculture and rural economy – land, labour, seed, agricultural implements, irrigation, harvesting, storage, cold chain and food processing, road infrastructure and more. “We want them (the farmers) to move on from (agricultural) commodity to products and enhance their income in the process,” adds Kumar.