Budget – Jaitley announces infra fund for Fishery, AH sectors

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The Government on February 1, 2018, said it is firmly on course to achieve high growth of 8% plus as manufacturing, services and exports are back on good growth path. While GDP growth at 6.3% in the second quarter of 2017-18 signalled turnaround of the economy, growth in the second half is likely to remain between 7.2% to 7.5%. Union  Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting the General Budget 2018-19 in Parliament on February 1, 2018, said that Indian society, polity and economy had shown remarkable resilience in adjusting with the structural reforms. IMF, in its latest Update, has forecast that India will grow at 7.4% next year in the backdrop of services resuming high growth rates of 8% plus, exports expected to grow at 15% in 2017-18 and manufacturing back on good growth path.

Reiterating the pledge given to the people of India four years ago to give this nation an honest, clean and transparent Government and to build a strong, confident and a New India, Jaitley said, the Government led by PM Narendra Modi has successfully implemented a series of fundamental structural reforms to propel India among the fastest growing economies of the world, according to a PIB release.

The Finance Minister said that this year’s Budget will particularly focus on strengthening agriculture and rural economy, provision of good health care to economically less privileged, taking care of senior citizens, infrastructure creation and working with the States to provide more resources for improving the quality of education in the country.

Referring to the Government‟s commitment to the welfare of farmers and doubling farmers’ income by 2022, the Finance Minister announced a slew of new schemes and measures.
He said that government has decided to keep MSP for all unannounced kharif crops at least one and half times of their production cost after declaring the same for the majority of rabi cops. He said,the volume of institutional credit for agriculture sector from year-to-year increased from Rs 8.5 lakh crore in 2014-15 to Rs10 lakh crore in 2017-18 and he proposed to raise this to Rs 11 lakh crore for the year 2018-19.

After the establishment of Dairy Infrastructure Fund, Jaitley announced setting up a Fisheries and Aqua culture Infrastructure Development Fund (FAIDF) for fisheries sector and an Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) for financing infrastructure requirement of animal husbandry sector with a total corpus of Rs 10,000 crore for the two new funds.

On the lines of ‘Operation Flood’, a new Scheme ‘Operation Greens’ was announced with an outlay of Rs 500 crore to address the challenge of price volatility of perishable commodities like tomato, onion and potato with the satisfaction of both the farmers and consumers. He also announced to develop and upgrade existing 22,000 rural haats into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) to take care of the interests of more than 86% small and marginal farmers, according to a PIB release.

Similarly, allocation of Ministry of Food Processing has been doubled from Rs 715 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 1,400 crore in 2018-19. Terming Bamboo as ‘Green Gold’, the Finance Minister announced a re-structured National Bamboo Mission with an outlay of Rs 1,290 crore to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner.

Under Prime Minister Krishi Sinchai Yojna-Har Khet ko Pani, 96 deprived irrigation districts will be taken up with an allocation of Rs 2,600 crore. The Centre will work with the state governments to facilitate farmers for installing solar water pumps to irrigate their fields. He also proposed to extend the facility of Kisan Credit Cards to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers to help them meet their working capital needs. Jaitley said India’s agri-exports potential is as high as US $100 billion against current exports of US $30 billion and to realize this potential, export of agri-commodities will be liberalized, according to the PIB release.