Ms. Sandeepa Kanitkar, Chairperson & MD Kan Biosys and Vice-Chair of Biological Agri Solutions Association of India (BASAI) shared her views on the Budget 21-22.
She stated that the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaramam laid out a moderate budget for agriculture. Focus is growth and stability in policy and reforms. Unlike expectations from the general public about the controversial farm reforms the budget was largely limited to de-stressing the MSME/industry to speed up growth. The budget focused more on the market side and did not have any large hiccups with respect to big budget reforms. The resilience of many sectors specially agriculture, markets and industry have been lauded. Main points are as follows:
1.Credit to Agri-sector has been increased to around 16.5 lac crores with thrust areas as fisheries, rural, micro-irrigation. The outlay on micro-irrigation has been increased to 10,000cr which is almost double of last year. This clearly speaks about encouraging growth in high value areas.
2.The value addition for processing crops was limited to around 4 or 5 which has been increased to around 22 perishable crops. Reducing the loans to NFSM and Food Corporation of India is being thought of. Food processing has also been a part of the PLI scheme. Between the lines the government is trying to move the farmers away from rice-wheat to other valuable commercial crops. The setting up of textile park will also boost up the cotton procurement in private manner.
3.Around 1.68 cr farmers have been registered with ENAAM and a talk of connecting 1000 more mandis has been laid out. The MSP which is paid as 1.5 times of the production costs in rice, wheat, pulses and cotton has gone up substantially as 62,802, 1.72 lac,10,530 cr and 25,974 cr respectively. The increase is almost 40 times in pulses. The big worry about the current de-linking of the APMC’s has been addressed by showcasing the MSP budget which has been substantially increased. Plan to modernize the APMC by digital payments which will bring about transparency.
4.Sea-weed park would be set up in Tamil Nadu. This would benefit the bio-stimulant sector and would encourage the use of domestic sea-weed as against imported from Canada or China.
5.1000 cr has been allotted to tea workers in Assam and West Bengal. This must have been done to promote export oriented crops. The migrant workers working in sugarcane have been given a miss.
6.A fact about Minimum government and maximum governance has benefitted the industry specially the OPC [ One person company], MSME and other companies too. This is with respect to faceless tax filing and resolution, assessment reopening time reduced to 3 years from 6, relaxation of tax audit for companies with turnover of < 5 cretc. Clear push to the industry is seen which will propel the growth.
7.Increasing the custom duty for importing cotton, silk, maize bran, prawn feed etc which will stabilize the rates of domestic commodities and profit them.
8.An agricultural infrastructural cess was also planned of 2.5% which may improve the investment in infrastructure. This is a welcome sign for agriculture which is starved of investment in infrastructure.
9.Encouraging the start-ups by waiving the capital gains tax for a year more. This is a welcome sign for encouraging entrepreneurship in all areas. India needs lakhs of start-up for a young population.
“To conclude it was a budget which was laid out with lot of restraint and promoting areas which high growth potential and consumer potential. Government is trying to open up the economy by divesting assets and lay foundation for a good GDP growth. It also wants to have a stable budget for tax and policies said Ms. Sandeepa Kanitkar. Further she expressed she felt accountability is going to be focused. Government would like growth to work for us.
