Finance Minister Nirmala Siraraman has declared a 16-point agenda to double up the income of farmers by 2022. It includes encouraging states to adopt modern agriculture schemes, PM Kusum Scheme, appropriate use of fertilizer, special schemes for 100 water-stressed districts, etc.
She said, “The government will help 20 lakh farmers for setting up stand-alone solar pumps and another 15 lakh farmers to set up solar irrigation facilities. Farmers with silos and barren land will be helped to set up solar power units that can be sold through the grid.”
The central government announced to distribute ₹15 lakh crores amongst farmers as a credit in the fiscal year 2020-2021. She said that NABARD would take up an exercise of mapping and geotagging agriculture warehouses, cold storage and other inventory storage. Under the current budget, the government has targeted the doubling of milk production from 53 million metric tonnes to 103 million metric tonnes.
The finance minister has approved ₹3.6 lakh crore under Jal Jivan Mission to facilitate Functional House tap Connection (FHTC) to every house in rural areas by 2025. She further announced to link one lakh Gram Panchayats with Bharat net to improve the digital delivery of service in rural areas. The government has allotted ₹6000 crores for it.
In the current Financial Budget 2020-21, the government has allotted ₹2.83 lakh crore for agriculture and allied sectors which includes ₹1.23 lakh crore for rural development and Panchayati Raj. The Ministry of Rural Development has two departments, which are rural development and land resources.
The government has allotted ₹60,000 PM KISAN Yojna. In 2019-20 Budget, ₹7,500 crores were allocated for the Yojna. PM KISAN is the central government scheme according to which families of each farmer get ₹6000 per annum in three instalments. Under the PM KISAN schemes, the government targeted to cover ₹12.5 lakh small and medium farmers.
Nearly 36 per cent of the total FMCG products are consumed in rural areas. As per the report published by Nileson, in 2019, consumption of FMCG products in the rural areas was lowest in the last seven years. The low consumption of FMCG led to a slowdown in the economy.
As per the economic survey 2019-20, the growth Gross Value Added (GVA) in the agriculture sector and allied sector reduced to 2.8 per cent from 6.9 in 2018-19. The growth in the livestock sector is 7.9 CAGR in the last five years. The livestock sector includes farm animals that help farmers to enhance their income.
(With inputs from agencies)