Little knowledge is dangerous; Kejriwal proves that

“Kejriwal has slammed the union budget saying it has nothing for the farmers. Criticizing budget just for the sake of it, he has completely ignored the fact that being committed to double farm income in five years, this is perhaps the most farming friendly budget in Indian history.”

The Union government has doubled annual spending on irrigation and crop insurance, and has developed a national digital platform for farm produce in order to ensure better prices for farmers, as part of its endevour to boost rural economy.

But perhaps in hurry to indulge in his usual tactic of criticizing and blaming anything under the Sun, he forgot to read the points spelled out in budget for farming sector.

What Kejriwal needs to know about budget?

The budget envisions moving beyond the traditional idea of food security to income security. And that can only be achieved by making farmers profitable and agriculture profitable. The objective is to reorient Government’s interventions in the farm sectors so that the income of the farmers is doubled by 2022.

Some of the initiatives in this direction:

· A dedicated Long Term Irrigation Fund to be created in NABARD with an initial corpus of about 20000 crore rupees

· Government to initiate decentralized procurement system and online procurement system to ensure benefit of Minimum Support Price (MSP) reaches the farmers

· An increased allocation for crop insurance by more than Rs.3,000 crore in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)

While the budget is aimed at improving rural infrastructure and increasing rural income to beat the agrarian distress, Kejriwal thinks otherwise. He has completely ignored the fact that there is an allocation of nearly Rs 36,000 crore for the farm sector while raising the agri-credit target to Rs 9 lakh crore for the next fiscal.