The Budget does well to bring the focus back on what could be the two largest drivers of India’s economic transformation over the next couple of years — the agricultural and food processing industry and the micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME) sector. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had set an ambitious target of doubling farm incomes by 2022.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley envisages that developing the agricultural sector as an enterprise can be a path to achieving this target. Agricultural produce is at an all-time high. Yet, farmers do not benefit due to low value addition in their produce.