38 12 February 2018If you look at rural India over the last seven to eight years, you can see there is distress.” In his Budget
speech, the Finance Minister had put the total rural livelihood development and infrastructure
outlay for next year at Rs14.3 lakh crore, a large proportion of the total expenditure figure, which
is pegged at Rs 24.4 lakh crore. this highlights the attention bestowed on rural India.
Much of it has to do with the unrest visible in parts of India on account of rural distress. one
major measure is an assurance that the Minimum support Prices (MsPs) for crops would be raised.
In his speech, Jaitley had said that for most rabi crops, these would be pushed up to one-and-a-half
times the cost of production. the expense involved had caused some concern among analysts. “It
was a difficult choice to make,” said Jaitley at the open house, “An analyst could say this will have
effects on the cost of food and fiscal concerns. But the distress in the agriculture sector is very high
and there is an aspiration in the farming community for implementing the recommendations of
the Ms s waminathan committee. the exact details will be worked out between the niti Aayog, the
Agriculture Ministry and state governments.” the broad idea, he added, was to ensure that farmers
got their fair share of compensation. “now what agency will handle the role of filling the shortfall
or gap between the MsP and the market price received by the farmer is a matter of discussion and
coordination between state governments and the niti Aayog,” he said.
In a country attuned to a ‘socialist’ way of thinking for so long, budgets are often viewed as a
zero-sum game: a gain for one segment of society is seen as a loss for others. the Budget for 2018-19- Shashwat Goenka of
RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group; - Jaitley shares a light
moment with Sanjiv
Goenka; 13. (L-R) Vishesh
Chandiok of Grant
Thornton India, Devansh
Jain of Inox Wind and
Avarna Jain; 14. Harsh Pati
Singhania and Sunil Munjal
of Hero MotorCorp
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