New Delhi: Following up on its promise in the interim Budget, the Centre, on July 5, proposed to hike the budgetary allocation for 2019-20 to the agricultural sector by 78%. At its centre is the government’s all-important scheme announced this February, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi or PM-Kisan.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare Rs 1.39 lakh crore for the current fiscal year, out of which, as pledged in the interim Budget, Rs 75,000 crore has been set aside for PM-Kisan.
In February, announcing the scheme to revive rural economy, interim finance minister Piyush Goyal had called the occasion “historic”. The nationwide scheme promises to pay a supplementary income of Rs 6,000 every year to each of the 120 million farmer families who own fewer than five acres of land.
While the financial burden of the scheme on the Centre slated was to be Rs 20,000 crore in the 2018-19 fiscal, it will mount to Rs 75,000 crore during 2019-20.
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Government figures made public in June said Rs 12,505 crore was released directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries chosen under the scheme.
Aside from this feature, the interest subsidy for short-term credit to farmers have also been raised from Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 18,000 crore. The government has proposed to increase the allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PM-FBY) too from the last fiscal’s revised estimate of Rs 12, 975.70 crore to Rs 14,000 crore.
While the planned outlay for the Market Intervention Scheme and Price Support Scheme (MIS-PSS), which focuses on ensuring minimum support price to farmers in case of steep fall of crop rates, has been adhered to, that of Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakhsna Yojana (PM-AASY) has been taken up by Rs 1,000 crore from last year’s estimate.
As many as 18 Central schemes have been put under the bracket of the ‘Green Revolution’ which has been allocated Rs 12,560 crore for the current fiscal, against the estimate of Rs 11,802 crore for 2018-19.
Together, the total planned outlay for the sector for the current financial year has been taken up to Rs 13,0485.21 crore, as against the estimate of Rs 67,800 crore for 2018-19.
Reacting to the budget allocations, All India Kishan Sabha, however, called it “empty rhetoric.”
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“The budget has nothing concrete for farmers and is merely empty rhetoric. It doesn’t address the issue of remunerative prices for farmers’ produce or suggest any steps to free them from debt. Rather, the government adds to the burden of farmers by proposing Rs 2 cess on diesel which will increase the cost of production significantly,” it said in a press note.
It also added, “With a huge rise in the cost of seeds, fertilizers, diesel and electricity as a result of decontrolling of their prices and imposition of the GST (Goods and Services Tax), the government needed to restore price regulation and bring input costs under control. Not only has the finance minister done nothing about it, to add insult to injury, she has declared that farmers should not buy any inputs and instead practice zero-budget farming.”
The Sabha, in a press note, also said that the allocation for MIS-PISS “is grossly inadequate for meeting the requirements of procurement.”
It called upon all its units “to rise up in protest against the betrayal of peasantry and be vigilant and resist any attempts to promote corporate interests.”