A ‘path breaking’ budget which gives a much needed impetus to the agriculture sector, the backbone of the Indian economy. Allocations such as Rs 500 crore for Operation Green, a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore for the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund and the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Fund, Rs 11 lakh crore for institutional credit for farm sector among others would help distressed farmers get necessary funding. Policies such as implementation of MSP for all crops; being hiked to 1.5 times of the production costs, linkages of APMCs with ENAM and an aim to develop 22,000 gramin agricultural markets and liberalisation of agricultural products export will boost farmers morale with more income in their hands. Making Direct Benefit Transfer a reality would also lend the farmers the much required flexibility in terms of money, choice and decisions.

Technology has always been an enabler. One lakh gram panchayats have already been connected through broadband. Focus on linking more villages to it and creating hundreds of wi-fi spots to make internet available to households in rural areas augur well for fast tracking of the development process. Programmes such as Ujjawala Yojana, Saubhagya Yojana, will help in uplifting the overall living standards of these people. Further, a 100% tax deduction for the first five years to companies registered as farmer producer companies with a turnover of Rs 100 crore and above would help attract more companies to enter into farm-based production.