Deficient monsoon: Is a big agri push on cards in Budget 2016?

After two consecutive years of low monsoon, it comes as no surprise that the government may be planning to give some allocation push to the agriculture sector in Union Budget 2016-17.

A Business Standard report quoting officials said, the government is looking to significantly increase allocation to marque programmes such as the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, and the one to provide soil health cards to the country's 140 million farmer families over three years.

The move is not just aimed at providing relief to farmers after the deficient monsoon season, the idea is to give a boost to the rural economy. In an interview to The Economic Times, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das recently said that the agricultural sector has become important after two years of bad monsoon. "Agriculture sector is very important because rural purchasing power comes from there," he said.

The BS report also stated that the government may either maintain allocation to Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana at Rs 15,100 crore as sanctioned for 2015-16 or increase it with the objective of connecting over 178,000 rural habitations with all-weather roads by March 2019 — three years ahead of scheduled completion. The ambitious soil health card scheme could get merged into the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), and hence allocation to RKVY could be enhanced. The government had allocated Rs 568 crore to the soil health card scheme in Budget 2015-16, out of which Rs 109 crore has been released to states as of December 31, 2015. Allocation to RKVY could increase to Rs 10,000 crore in Budget 2016-17, compared with just Rs 4500 crore allocated in Budget 2015-16.