Big push to agriculture with gets 51% increase

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 9

With an outlay hike of 51.22 per cent in agriculture and allied activities, 20.01 per cent in irrigation and 24.65 per cent in rural development, community development and panchayats, the state Budget is being touted as farmer-friendly by the government.

With the INLD on agitating over the SYL canal for the past one year, this Budget made a provision of Rs 100 crore for the project.

“I propose to allocate an outlay of Rs 100 crore for this purpose in 2018-19. I assure the House that even if Rs 1,000 crore is required, we will provide it,” Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu said in his Budget speech today.

He proposed an increase of 51.22 per cent in outlay for agriculture and allied activities from Rs 2,709.69 crore at revised estimates (RE) of 2017-18 to Rs 4,097.46 crore for 2018-19.

This included outlay of Rs 1,838.49 crore for agriculture, Rs 913.43 crore for animal husbandry, Rs 834.91 crore for horticulture, Rs 427.17 crore for forests and Rs 83.46 crore for fisheries.

He proposed an outlay of Rs 3,222.21 crore for irrigation and water resources in 2018-19, which was 20.01 per cent more than RE for 2017-18 outlay of Rs 2,684.89 crore.

He proposed Rs 4,301.88 crore for rural development, community development and panchayats, an increase of 24.65 per cent over Rs 3,451.19 crore in RE for 2017-18.

Listing farmer-friendly initiatives, he said that the government has prepared “Horticulture Vision” with the aim to double the area under horticulture from the present 7.5 per cent to 15 per cent, and triple the horticulture production in the state by 2030.

The first horticultural university in the state with three regional research stations had been established in Karnal. It had been envisaged to have collaboration with global institutes and universities.

In order to boost demonstration activities in horticultural crops, centres of excellence were being established in each district. The first-of-its-kind centre in India on bee-keeping had been established in Kurukshetra in 2017. Work on three centres in Palwal, Jhajjar and Narnaul had been started.

Capt Abhimanyu made mention of the “Bhavantar Bharpai Yojana” recently launched by the government to mitigate the risk of farmers by giving them incentives during low prices in the wholesale market. In the first phase, onion, tomato, potato and cauliflower were covered.

The Central government had launched the e-market platform e-NAM (National Agricultural Market) to make the system for marketing of agricultural produce smooth, transparent, farmer-friendly and commission agent-friendly.

Allocation for other sectors

Rs 14,003.35 crore
Education, sports, art and culture

Rs 4,050.61 crore
Health and family welfare 

Rs 7,985.08 crore
Social security and welfare 

Rs 942.73 crore
Technical education and industrial training 

Rs 7,194.71 crore
Other social services 

Rs 399.86 crore
Industries and minerals

Rs 2,739.67 crore
Transport

Rs 6,154.97 crore
Other economic services