Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday began pre-budget consultations, starting with agriculturalists.
His meeting with India Inc was postponed to January 31, instead of Friday.
At on Wednesday’s meeting, some experts suggested proceeding with multi-brand foreign direct investment to stabilise food prices and give farmers profitable returns. Others recommended rationalisation of farm subsidies and decentralisation of grain handling to ensure food security. Suggestions for tax exemptions to cooperatives; asking States to remove mandi tax and purchase tax on dairy cooperatives; and exemption of taxes for fishery cooperatives were made.
Agricultural economist Ashok Gulati, who heads the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, suggested major reforms. P Chengal Reddy, Consortium of Indian Farmers Association; B S Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University; K V Prabhu, Indian Agriculture Research Institute; Ramesh Chand, National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, were also present.
Mukherjee attributed the huge fall in food inflation for the week ended December 24 — from 22 per cent in February 2010 — to RBI’s apt monetary moves and the government’s supply augmenting measures. He pointed to the difficult domestic and external economic situation.
Admitting that reining in fiscal deficit to 4.6 per cent of GDP would be difficult, the minister asserted that best efforts would be made to be as close to the Budget target as possible.
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Renowned agricultural economist Ashok Gulati, who heads the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices — suggested major reforms in supply chain, such as enhancing storage facilities for controlling inflation, which remained high through 2011 but came down in December.
The Finance Minister will now hold consultations with trade union leaders, social sector representatives, state finance ministers, banks, financial institutions, and economists.
Besides Gulati, others who attended the meeting include P. Chengal Reddy, Consortium of Indian Farmers Association, Dinesh, National Cooperative Union of India, B.S. Dhillon, Vice Chancellor, Punjab Agricultural University, Amita Shah, Gujarat Institute of Development Research, K.V. Prabhu, Indian Agriculture Research Institute, Y.Sivaji,former MP, Ramesh Chand, National Centre for Agri Economics and Policy Research and Anil Singh, National Secretary, NAFA among others.