At a time when the country is grappling with core issues — State of Agriculture and State of Farmers — and a massive agitation is attracting global attention, the Union Budget was a god-sent opportunity for the federal government to underline its intent towards the issue. Governments, this one as well as those in the past, have often been guilty of making big promises and allocating huge funds for pro-farmer schemes, without any intention of living up to these. This government has given up even on that hypocrisy.

We discuss with our guests – Dr Pyara Lal Garg, a retired academic and well known public policy analyst, and Hamir Singh, a senior journalist and activist known for his grasp of the rural development policies and close understanding of the lives of those in the rural sector – why the government chose to blatantly reduce the agriculture budget, cut down the MGNREGA allocation, even reduce the expenditure on mid-day meal scheme, and effectively truncate the healthcare budget.

Remember that there is a short hop from this 2021-22 budget and the deadline set by the prime minister for doubling the farmers’ income – August 15, 2022. With no visible progress in that direction in the current budget, there is only one budget now that remains.

Where is the report card of current income levels of farmers?

As the debate brings out, in 1947, agriculture accounted for 54.4 per cent of GDP, and 60% of the population depended upon it. As per 2019-20 data, it accounted for 17% of GDP, half of the country’s population depends upon it and it has hovered at around 3-4% growth rate. In the Union Budget 2021-22, agriculture and rural development claim 9.05% of total budget.

While last year’s Budgetary Estimate for Agriculture was 1.34 lakh crore, the Revised Estimate was 1.16 lakh crore, and the 2021-22 Budget allocation is Rs 1.23 lakh crore, much lower than the Rs 1.34 lakh crore in the last budget. Clearly, the GoI is stating in so many words that it cares two hoots for the farmers’ agitation.

Shockingly, the Agriculture Ministry did not even spend its full budget during 2020-21, and the overall budgetary allocation to agriculture came down by 8% from last year.

It is now clear that the Modi government is intent on what it calls “liberalising the agricultural sector”, a euphemism for developing a capitalist market mechanism with priorities other than assured crop procurement and buffer stocks.

Even the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) saw only a 4% hike, and the government didn’t even spend the allocated amount. Of the Rs 13,640 crore in 2019-20, the government spent only Rs 12,639 crore. It said 7 million farmers benefitted last year even when India has 120 million farm households.

The low spending under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) than the allocated sum was a shocker. The government had allocated Rs 75,000 crore in 2020-21 Budget, but reduced it to Rs 65,000 crore in RE 2020-21. One would have expected an increase in the Rs 6,000 yearly amount. Also, there has been no talk of extending this PM-KISAN scheme to tenant farmers who have remained excluded from the start.

The revised estimates for Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) and Interest subvention scheme for farmers are also lower than the budget estimates by Rs. 3,173 crore and Rs. 1,343 crore, respectively.

The interest subvention scheme aims at providing short term credit to farmers at subsidised interest rate. Despite all the talk of welfare for farmers, the allocation for the scheme for 2021-22 has been reduced by 8% as the budget estimate for this year is lower than that for 2020-21 by Rs. 1,707 crore. This allocation is, in fact, lower than the expenditure made on interest subsidies made in 2020-21 by Rs. 364 crore or 2%.

Any government could have known that in times of a raging farmers’ agitation in the country, its intention will be judged by what it does for the rural flagship programmes centred around five themes:

— Rural housing (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin)

— Rural employment (MGNREGA)

— Rural connectivity (PM Gram Sadak Yojana)

— Rural livelihood (Deendayal Antayodaya Yojana-Nat Rural Livelihoods Mission)

— Rural skilling (Deendayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana and Rural Self Employment Training Institutes).

There was no major announcement for any of these flagship schemes. You can gauge the intent from the statistics more clearly than from any polemics by politicians.

Incidentally, the Standing Committee on Agriculture had submitted a report to Parliament on March 3, 2020 and the Government of India had asked all the departments to work towards doubling farmers’ income by August 15, 2022. The ICAR has prepared plans for each state and sent them for implementation. But where are the details? How should the states work to this end? How will the GoI analyse the progress? The Finance Minister did not utter a word about all this.