Record 10th anti-farmer, anti-people Budget in a row, says Kisan union

The All India Kisan Sabha also claimed that the allocation of resources for women and children, and for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, has also been cut drastically

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has criticised Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's interim Budget and said that the Budget for 2024-25 has nothing substantial to offer for the rural economy and the agricultural sector.

In an official statement, the agricultural body has also called upon all its units to rise up in protest against the Budget on February 16 and mark it as 'Grameen Bharat Bandh'.

"The Narendra Modi-led BJP Government is trying to create a fake narrative that the Union Budget 2024-25 (Interim) is "innovative and inclusive", while the hard reality is that 2023-24 and 2024-25 would be the years with the lowest spending on agriculture and allied activities in the last five years. Even in the election year, the Union Budget 2024-25 (Interim) has nothing substantial to offer for the rural economy and the agricultural sector... Record tenth anti-farmer, anti-people Budget in a row," it said.

 

AIKS further said that when compared with 2022-23, the allocation for agriculture and allied activities in the 2024-25 budget has been cut by a whopping 81 thousand crores.

"In overall allocations for agriculture and allied activities there is a decline of 22.3 per cent compared to actual expenditure in 2022-23 and 6 per cent decline vis a vis the 2023-24 revised budget," it said.

It further alleged that the "innovative" methods to annihilate the peasantry invented by the Modi government are sought to be 'hidden in the larger framework of the nationalist narrative'.

It also said that the budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman shows massive cuts in rural development, MGNREGA, rural employment, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, cooperation, food storage and warehousing, plantations, crop husbandry, flood control and drainage, land reforms, fertilizer subsidy, food subsidy, dairy development, soil and water conservation, irrigation, nutrition, rural roads, housing, education and health.

It also claimed that the allocation of resources for women and children, and for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, has also been cut drastically.

"There has been no allocation to ensure that the long-standing demand of the farmers for ensuring Minimum Support Prices as per the C2+50 per cent becomes a reality. The allocation for fertilizer subsidy in 2024-25 is Rs. 87339 crores less than the actual expenditure in 2022-23. The allocation for food subsidy is 67552 crores less than the actual expenditure in 2022-23," it said.

"The anti-farmer attitude of the Modi government is seen in the fact that year after year, budgetary allocations in key areas such as fertilizer and food subsidies, as well as for important schemes such as MGNREGA, reflect the intent of the government to massively cut allocations to these crucial sectors," AIKS added.

Taking a swipe at the BJP-led government, the All India Kisan Sabha said, "The Finance Minister has also reiterated the NDA regime's loyalty to International Finance Capital by promising an unhindered path for finance, in the form of FDI etc. To give it a nationalist colour and manipulate people, the Finance Minister has defined FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) as "First Develop India"; it is rather a project to Fast Drain India. The proposal to promote private and public investment in post-harvest activities including storage, processing, and marketing is a blatant attempt to bring back the draconian Farm Acts and the rapacious corporates through the back door, which they were forced to withdraw after the historic farmers' struggle."

However, the government said that the Budget was presented with a focus on economic policies that foster growth, facilitate inclusive development, improve productivity, and create opportunities for various sections while noting that it will pay utmost attention to the eastern region including the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and West Bengal to make them growth engines as part of a goal to make India a developed country by 2047.

No change was proposed in the tax rates in the interim budget with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing that the government will form a high-powered committee for an extensive consideration of the challenges arising from fast population and that it will present a white paper on the economic performance of 10 years of BJP-led government compared to previous 10 years of Congress-led UPA government.