Budget 2022: FM focuses on boosting rural infra, digitising agriculture

Budget for agri, allied activities rose by a nominal 2.5% for FY23, compared to FY22 RE

For the rural sector, the Budget was focused largely on creating tangible assets such as roads and houses in villages while at the same time slashing the Budget for the flagship MGNREGS by a 25.51 per cent against the revised estimates of FY22.

Being a demand-driven scheme, there is every possibility of a further topping up of the MGNREGS during the next financial year as it has happened in the current fiscal year, where the revised estimate has been raised to almost Rs 98,000 crore as against a budgetary estimate of Rs 73,000 crore during the year due to strong work demand.

For the agriculture sector, there was not much in terms of allocating funds for major schemes but some focus was on creating a digital ecosystem in farming and also shifting farmers towards oilseeds and pulses.

A big disappointment for farmers was in terms of not getting a hike in the direct benefit transfer scheme of PM-Kisan, for which the Centre allocated Rs 68,000 crore in the Budget Estimate of FY23, marginally up from the Revised Estimate of FY22.

With elections in major agriculturally crucial states of Punjab and UP, which have been the hotbed of the recent farmers’ agitation against the three laws, just round the corner, expectations were that the finance minister might increase the amount of money distributed under the programme from the current Rs 6,000 per annum, but it seems she resisted it.

For other schemes in the farm sector, allocations for the crop insurance scheme and the interest subvention programme for short-term credit were maintained largely at their previous levels. For promoting domestic oilseeds production, the Budget allocated Rs 600 crore in FY23 under the broader umbrella programme of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY).

According to the Budget documents, the programme aims to increase the production and productivity of oilseeds in the next five years starting from 2020-21 until 2025-26 from 36.10 million tonnes to 54.10 million tonnes.

The productivity is targeted to be raised from 1,254 kg per hectare to 1,676 kg per hectare.

“Additional oilseeds area of 3.5 million hectares (from 28.79 million hectares to 32.31 million hectares) will be brought under oil seeds cultivation,” the Budget document said.

The Budget for the agriculture and allied activities rose by a nominal 2.5 per cent in FY23 compared to the revised estimate of FY22.

For the rural sector, the Budget allocation saw a drop from Rs 2,06,948 crore in FY22 (RE) to Rs 2,06,293 crore in FY23 (BE).

“The government has still not fulfilled the written assurances on which the farm unions had agreed to suspend the movement. In such a situation, the farmers will be left with no choice but to resume the farm movement,” said Avik Saha, president of the Jai Kisan Andolan.

D Narain, president, Bayer South Asia and Global Head of Smallholder Farming, welcomed the Budget.