Budget 2021: Government sets agricultural credit target to Rs 16.5 lakh crore
Amid the protests by farmers against the three contentious laws affecting Indian farmers, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Budget for the Indian agricultural sector amidst the sloganeering by the opposition.
The Economic Survey showed that the agriculture sector supported the economy while other major sectors were at a near standstill during the Coronavirus-induced lockdown. While the government has refused to repeal these laws, measures announced in the Budget were expected to help change the dynamic between the farmers and the government.
To begin, the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman announced updates for the agricultural schemes already in force.
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A total of 1.54 crore farmers benefited from MSP in paddy & wheat in FY21 vs 1.24 crore YoY
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Amount paid to farmers for wheat in FY21 was Rs 75,060 crore vs Rs 62,802 crore in FY20
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Amount paid to farmers for paddy in FY21 seen at Rs 1.72 crore Rs vs Rs 1.41 lakh crore in FY20
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Amount paid to farmers for pulses in FY21 seen at Rs 10,530 crore vs Rs 8,285 crore in FY20
The FM proposed to increase agriculture credit target to Rs 16.5 lakh crore and provisioned to increase rural infra development fund to Rs 40,000 crore from Rs 30,000 crore and micro-irrigation corpus will be doubled to Rs 10,000 crore. She added that the agriculture infra fund will be made available to Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) for augmenting the infrastructure. One of the main arguments against the new farm laws is that these laws will put an end to APMCs.
Presenting the Union Budget for 2021-22, Sitharaman further said 1,000 more mandis will be integrated with the electronic national market and the agriculture infrastructure fund would be made available to APMCs to augment infrastructure facilities. Besides, she proposed that that Operation Green Scheme will additionally cover 22 perishable commodities while announcing the development of five major fishing hubs.
Agri-companies such as Bombay Burmah, Nath Bio-Genes and Shree Ganesh BioTech were trading up by 1.6 per cent, 3.74 per cent and 5.66 per cent higher in response to the announcements.