Sitharaman holds pre-budget consultations on agriculture and related issues

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 18

Ahead of Union Budget 2020-21, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday held pre-Budget consultations on agriculture and related issues with farmer groups and stakeholders from across the country.

Farmer organisation Bharat Krishak Samaj recommended promoting backyard poultry through sourcing eggs from such units for mid-day meals, a statutory farmers’ organisation headed by a farmer and bringing alcohol, an agricultural produce, under the ambit of the GST at the highest tax slab.

Even after the states are reimbursed for giving up revenues collected from alcohol, the central government should have an annual surplus of over Rs 50,000 crore, said Ajay Vir Jakhar, BKS chairman, as part of recommendations for the upcoming Budget.

Jakhar said he suggested options for “augmenting resources and interventions that will lead to structural changes to improve livelihood of rural communities. Additionally, they will help retrieve the situation arising out of extremely low inflation over the past few years, which has adversely impacted terms of trade for farmers”.

The BKS also recommended a statutory farmers’ commission headed by a farmer, comprising an IAS officer as a full-time member-secretary and agriculture secretary as an official member, with the mandate to review existing interventions, recommend new initiatives, re-purposing of existing subsidies and allocation of resources. “This suggestion found an encouraging response from the government at the meeting,” said Jakhar.

Sitharaman is currently holding pre-budget consultation exercise with various stakeholders representing different sectors to seek inputs from them. She is expected to present her second Budget on February 1. The consultations are expected to continue till December 23. Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar and Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian are among those participating in these meetings.

One of the recommendations of the BKS is also designing a new crop insurance and compensation scheme and scrapping the proposed DBT of fertiliser subsidy which, it said, “has only one winner and that is the fertiliser industry”.