Budget 2024 — Different From Previous Ones

It is customary for any incumbent government that presents an interim budget before general elections to announce populist proposals to attract voter attention. From that perspective, the interim budget 2024 is different. No tax cuts, no freebies, no subsidies.

In some way, it reflects the confidence of the political party running the government that it would return to power to present a full budget in the months ahead. That confidence perhaps emanates from the positive outcome of several welfare measures initiated in recent years.

The budget has targeted four groups of people—women, youth, farmers and the poor. Come to think of it, these are not distinct or separate groups that are mutually exclusive, nor are they collectively exhaustive. There is a lot of overlap. For example, a poor person may be a youth engaged in farming and that person may be a woman.

The Finance Minister did refer to the importance of each one of these groups and highlighted what the present government has done for each of them. Ideally, the single-minded targeted pursuit should have been ‘the poor’ and efforts to lift the maximum number of the poor out of poverty.

Be that as it may, the interim budget has laid out a long list of pious intentions. It is critical that action follows, and there is a reasonable belief that intentions will be concreted with budgetary outlays in the next full budget.

In the Finance Minister’s speech, agriculture-related highlights covered a host of policy measures and activities that have benefited the farming sector. For example, 40 million farmers are benefiting from the PM Fasal Bima Yojana (crop insurance scheme) and the rapid integration of mandis (agrimarketing yards) with e-NAM (electronically driven National Agricultural Market).

Post-harvest losses in crops, including perishables, are rather high in our country and inflict losses that are often invisible and unaccounted for. Any reduction in such losses is sure to boost the overall agri-economy and benefit growers and other stakeholders. To this end, the FM assured that the government would promote both public and private investment that would help improve the supply chain and capture cost efficiency.

A boost to public expenditure for building agri-infrastructure across the country is critical. In the last budget, the FM proposed the creation of an Agriculture Infrastructure Development Fund by levying a cess on specified imports. This fund has to be deployed purposefully. An increase in public investment in agri-infrastructure is sure to crowd in private investment too.

We have over 125 milch animals in cows and buffaloes. Although our country is the world’s largest producer of milk, per animal milk yield is rather low, as low as just half of the global average of 2,500 litres a year. More often than not, the milch animals are undernourished, which adversely impacts milk yield. There is a dire need for genetic enhancement and for improvement in animal health through more nutritious feed.

Nano-Urea was introduced last year, but its efficacy is yet to be scientifically confirmed through empirical evidence. Yet, the FM talked about introducing nano-DAP (diammonium phosphate). Without doubt, nanofertilizers are economical. Yet, some amount of caution is necessary before going ahead on a full scale.

Concerned over the large-scale import of vegetable oils (about 14–15 million tonnes worth $12–13 billion per annum), the FM once again reiterated that there would soon be a strategy for moving towards self-sufficiency (Aatmanirbhar) in oilseeds and oils. This talk of self-sufficiency in vegetable oils has been doing the rounds for over five years now, yet concrete action backed by strategy and investment is lacking. There are many policy options available for boosting domestic production.

G. Chandrashekhar is a senior journalist and policy commentator. Views are personal. He can be reached at: gchandrashekhar@gmail.com

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