Farm focus boost for Bengal

The aquaculture friendly Union budget that followed West Bengal's budget that too gave impetus to the farm sector will boost the rural economy of the state, said top officials of business houses associated with the sector.

West Bengal is a major aquaculture exporters which is about Rs 4,000 crore a year and has potential to increase it up to Rs 25,000 crore a year, Anmol Feeds managing director Amit Saraogi said.

"The Rs 1000 crore fund toward aquaculture development in the Union budget will help in increasing production and area of cultivation in Bengal," Saraogi said.

Nabard Bengal region CGM, A K Raybarman said, "The Union Budget will boost the rural economy in West Bengal with roll out of electronically connected Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) which is expected to result in better price realisation to the farmers."
 

As the GrAMs are exempted from the regulations under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act, it is expected to help immensely in rolling out the connected agri-markets in the state.

APMC Act was coming in the way of implementation of E-National Agriculture Markets (e-NAM) in West Bengal, Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare minister Radha Mohan Singh had said recently.

The e-NAMs are larger agri-markets compared to GrAMs.

The budget proposed an Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the 22,000 GrAMs and 585 AMPC markets.

These e-markets will provide the farmers a facility to make direct sales to consumers and bulk purchasers.

The government's fixation of minimum support price to 1.5 times of the cost will also help lakhs of jute farmers of the state, former Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA) chairman Sanjay Kajaria said.

"We welcome the decision. If jute farmers are saved, industry will also be saved," Kajaria said.

Merchants Chamber of Commerce president Ramesh Agarwal said extension of the reduced rate of 25 per cent corporate tax to companies with turnover up to Rs 250 crore in fiscal 2016-17 is a welcome relief for the MSMEs.

Patton group MD Sanjay Budhia said, "Being one of the predominant states in agriculture, Bengal should also benefit from the budget due to allocation and spends in agri Sector.