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Reiterating that the Government was committed to the welfare of farmers, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitaraman made a slew of announcements for the agri-sector in the Union Budget 2021-22 that included enhanced credit for the sector, higher allocation for micro-irrigation and raising duties on some farm products to protect the domestic growers.
The Agriculture Credit target for 2021-22 has been enhanced to ₹16.5 lakh crore, an increase of 10 per cent over the previous year’s ₹15 lakh crore. Similarly, the corpus for micro-irrigation has been doubled to ₹10,000 crore from ₹5,000 crore, the Finance Minister said.
Also the allocation for the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund has been increased from ₹30,000 crore to ₹40,000 crore.
The Operations Greens Scheme, currently applicable for Tomato, Onion and Potato value chain will be expanded to 22 more perishable products to encourage value addition. Announced for the first time in 2018-19 budget with an outlay of ₹500 crore, the Operation Greens scheme, on the lines of Operation Flood, was aimed at promoting farmer producer organisation, strengthening agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management. Operations Greens is focussed on organised marketing of tomatoes, onions and potatoes by connecting farmers with consumers.
Also to protect the farmers from cheaper imports, Sitaraman has announced the increase in customs duty on products such as cotton, raw silk and silk yarn. Cotton will attract customs duty of 10 per cent, while the levy on raw silk and silk yarn has been increased from 10 to 15 per cent.
Further, to strengthen the post-harvest facilities, Sitharaman announced that the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, announced in the aftermath of the Coivd Pandemic lockdown last year, would be made available for the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee mandis to augment their infrastructure.
Around 1.68 crores farmers are registered with eNAM and the value of the produce traded on the platform is ₹1.14 lakh crores. “Keeping in view the transparency and competitiveness that e-NAM has brought into the agricultural market, 1,000 more mandis will be integrated with e-NAM,” Sitharaman said.
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