Finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey has indicated that more schemes for agriculture improvement and infrastructure may well be rolled out in FY22 as the government expects to produce Rs 30,000-35,000 crore from the agriculture infrastructure and improvement cess introduced in the Budget.
While the budgetary allocation for the division of agriculture and cooperation has been lowered by 8% to Rs 1.23 lakh crore for next economic year from the spending budget estimate of FY21, there is no new scheme announced.
“There is a reduction in the additional excise duty, which used to come only to the Centre (not shared with states) after this cess has been introduced. This amount collected through additional excise duty could have been spent on any scheme,” Pandey stated, adding, the cash collected by means of the cess will be spent only on agri infrastructure. A important quantity of this fund (collected by means of the cess) will also go to the states to construct the agriculture infrastructure, which is quite essential and states will also get the advantage.
“There could be many areas like construction of warehouses, food processing facilities, and those could be covered under this programme. Once this cess is there, some more programmes could also be added,” Pandey stated at Idea Exchange. The cess has been imposed at distinctive prices right after minimizing the customs duty of a quantity of products so that shoppers are also protected.
With a more realistic image emerging from farmers’ enrolment information for the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi — only 10.5 crore have received the quantity due right after verification an earnings help of Rs 6,000 per year, against the government’s estimate of 14 crore — the government has brought down the allocation for the scheme to Rs 65,000 crore, from the FY21 BE of Rs 75,000 crore. The government has also earmarked Rs 900 crore for the Rs 1-lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund scheme, beneath which credit will be disbursed at subsidised interest.
Minister for agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar had stated final week in Rajya Sabha that the funds will not be a issue if more farmers are registered. So far, only 10.75 crore farmers have been registered beneath the scheme in spite of ideal efforts of the government, even as the target is to cover as numerous as 14 crore land-owning farmers. The Centre straight transfers Rs 6,000/year in 3 equal instalments into the bank accounts of PM-Kisan beneficiaries.
The funds for the flagship Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana of the meals processing industries ministry has also been lowered by 35% to `700 crore for FY22.