Agriculture Department Budget has Increases by 6 Fold in Past Six Year ; H.S.Puri

Union Minister Shri Hardeep Puri has stated that the budget of the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare has gone up quite sixfold within the past six years.

 He added that Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has implemented the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee to extend MSP to 1.5 times the value of production. He highlighted that the quantity spent on procurement at MSP went up by 85 percent in 2014-19 compared to 2009-14. 

MSP has risen within the range of 40-70 percent for all major crops in 2020-21 as compared to 2013-14. He further said that this year, procurement of paddy at MSP in Punjab has been 25 percent quite last year and 20 percent quite even the procurement target for this year. He informed that over Rs 1,10,000 crore has been transferred on to the accounts of farmers through the PM Kisan Yojana and Rs 87,000 crore paid as crop insurance to farmers against a premium of merely Rs 17,450 crore till date.

Union Minister further informed that in 1950, the Indian agriculture sector contributed around 52 per cent to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), while employing nearly 70 per cent of our entire population. He added that as of 2019, the world still employed nearly 42 per cent of our total population but contributed only 16 per cent to the GDP, while experiencing a year-on-year rate of growth of just 2 per cent.

Referring to a 2018 study by the commercial bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Shri Puri said that 52.5 percent of all agricultural households were indebted with a mean debt of $1,470 (around Rs 1.08 lakh). He added that 30 percent of our agriculture production continues to urge wasted thanks to a scarcity of proper cold chain infrastructure. He further said that these factors structure for a quintessentially inefficient supply chain and as a result, consumers don't have a choice of products, wastage is high and costs are highly volatile. He added that at an equivalent time, the Indian farmer is subjected to the vagaries of global climate change , markets, middlemen and lack of essential infrastructure.

Shri Puri highlighted that leading agriculture economists have also recommended these reforms, allowing our farmers to sell their produce within the open market. He added that some Indian states have also adopted and implemented these reforms on their own over the years — for instance, Bihar, where the agriculture growth average is 6 percent compared to the national average of just 2 percent.

Shri Puri stressed that the govt has repeatedly requested the farmers to speak and help resolve any of their concerns. He added that states are going to be allowed to impose taxes on the mandis and albeit the govt has made time-bound dispute resolution mechanisms, the govt has also agreed to offer access to civil courts just in case of disputes.