Lower allocation

Budget for rural India may need to be revisited

The Union Budget 2022-23 has underplayed the need to ramp up the farm sector, which, despite sustained growth during the pandemic, has continued to show signs of distress. Most of the measures presented in the Budget for this sector are virtually repackaged versions of the ongoing programmes. No new initiative has been mooted to cut costs or boost profitability in farming and its allied activities, barring duty reduction on inputs for export-oriented shrimp farming. Further, the outlays for some critical areas have either been curtailed or kept unchanged. These include a hefty cut in food and fertiliser subsidies, reduced funding