In twin cities, Budget gets mixed response from farmers

As widely expected, Budget 2017 increased funding for crop insurance and set a higher target for farm credit, rendering a huge push for market reforms in the agricultural sector.

Providing a huge boost, agriculture and rural sectors have been granted Rs 1, 87,223 crore in 2017-18, which is 24 per cent higher that the earlier Budget with an expectation that the farm sector will grow by 4.1per cent in the next fiscal year.

For the twin cities, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced provisions related to farm credit targets and rural housing development schemes that received huge applause from the farmers. But the agriculturalists have their concerns over low allocation of funds under certain schemes.

Dushyant Nagar, Convenor of Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Noida, said: "There are mixed reactions from the farmers as well as from the organisations fighting for their rights. We have raised our issues with the Prime Minister requesting him to include Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for the smaller water reserves which will solve the problem of irrigation, lack of drinking water and mass migration of people from the villages to urban areas as this will create employment in villages.

"The government has included the issue in the Budget and we hail this decision."

Apart from this, the association criticised schemes related to allocation of low funds.

"However, the government has raised the crop insurance from Rs 5,500 crore to Rs 13,000 crore but there is a need to reform the policy as the poor farmers face a lot of hindrances in receiving the money as he has to fulfill several conditions of which he is totally unaware of. The fund allotted for dairy processing unit to be set up in NABARD is very less as compared to the number of under-developed districts of the nation. Such a less amount will hardly be enough to buy the agricultural animals, leave alone the farmers getting acquainted with the advanced technologies adopted by other developed nations," added Nagar.

Jaitley allocated Rs 23,000 crore for the PMAY in the Budget. "We propose to complete one crore houses by 2019 for those living in kachha houses," he said. Affordable housing projects will be given infrastructural status to avail the benefits.

Other provisions include Rs 10 lakh crore of fixed farm credit target, Nabard to be supported to create 63,000 functional primary agricultural credit societies at an estimated cost of Rs 1,900 crore, issuance of soil health cards and setup of mini labs in Krishi Vigyan Kendras, assistance of up to Rs 75 lakh for cleaning and packaging of farmers' produce.