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Just as every year, this year’s union budget focuses on various sectors, mainly the agricultural industry. The Union Budget 2024-25 of India, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, has introduced several significant measures to boost the agriculture sector. It is with pride that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman is the first person to present the 7th consecutive budget in the country with the government of the third term.
The total allocation for the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare is ₹1.52 lakh crore, a significant commitment to the sector.
The budget focuses on 9 key sectors of which agriculture is on the priority list.
Discussing it further one can note that the focus is on productivity and resilience in agriculture. Let us understand the impact of budget on the agriculture sector:
The key takeaway of this budget for agriculture are:
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PM Kisan Nidhi:
The PM Kisan scheme which is an initiative by the government of India with 100% funding from the government is allocated Rs. 60000 crores continuing direct financial assistance to small and marginal farmers, benefiting approximately 11.8 crore farmers.
Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana:
It is a scheme that was launched by the Prime Minister. It is a government-sponsored crop insurance scheme that integrates multiple stakeholders on a single platform. This crop insurance scheme continues to receive support to protect farmers against adverse weather and other unforeseen events, covering around 4 crore farmers.
Electronic National Agricultural Market (e-NAM):
It is an online trading platform for trade in agricultural commodities. It helps farmers, traders, and buyers to trade in commodities on a single platform. It also helps farmers achieve the target of productive yield by enabling better prices. Integration of 1,361 mandis into this digital platform aims to streamline agricultural trading, with an expected trading volume increase to ₹3 lakh crore, benefiting 1.8 crore farmers.
Public-Private Partnerships:
PPPs involve collaboration between a government agency and a private sector company. Typically, it involves private capital financing government projects and services up-front, and then drawing revenues from taxpayers and/or users for profit throughout the PPP contract. In this emphasis is on improving post-harvest infrastructure and storage facilities to reduce losses, which are currently substantial for fruits, vegetables, and other crops.
Atmanirbhar Oil Seeds Abhiyan:
The Union Minister said that the Atmanirbhar Oil Seeds Abhiyan is an important initiative of the government. Based on the initiative announced in 2022, a strategy will be prepared to achieve 'atmanirbharta' for oilseeds like mustard, groundnut, sesame, soybean, and sunflower. This initiative promotes self-sufficiency in edible oils, encouraging the development of high-yielding oilseed varieties and reducing import dependency.
It is one of the important budgets from the point of view of the agriculture industry. The main highlighting point of this budget is the focus on technological advancement for all the sectors including agriculture.
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