Chhattisgarh will be receiving huge boost to its various sectors from the Union Budget 2018-19.
Some of the key announcements in the Budget which would have direct benefits for Chhattisgarh are as follows:
The Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all unannounced kharif crops will be one and half times of their production cost like majority of rabi crops. The Institutional Farm Credit raised to 11 lakh crore in 2018-19 from 8.5 lakh crore in 2014-15. If price of the agriculture produce market is less than MSP, then in that case Government should purchase either at MSP or work in a manner to provide MSP for the farmers through some other mechanism. NITI Aayog, in consultation with Central and State Governments,will put in place a fool-proof mechanism so that farmers will get adequate price for their produce.
Tribal students to get Ekalavya Residential School in each tribal block by 2022. Welfare fund for SCs gets a boost.
22,000 rural haats to be developed and upgraded into Gramin Agricultural Markets to protect the interests of 86% small and marginal farmers. The strengthening of e-NAM and to expand coverage of e-NAM to 585 APMCs. 470 APMCs have been connected to e-NAM network and rest will be connected by March, 2018.
An Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of Rs 2000 crore will be set up by the Central Government for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the 22000 Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and 585 APMCs.
Cultivation of horticulture crops in clusters bring advantages of scales of operations and can spur establishment of entire chain from production to marketing, besides giving recognition to the districts for specific crops. The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare will reorient its ongoing Schemes and promote cluster based development of agri commodities and regions in partnership with the Ministries of Food Processing, Commerce and other allied Ministries.
Allocation of Ministry of Food Processing is being doubled from Rs 715 crore in RE 2017-18 to Rs 1400 crore in BE 2018-19. Government will promote establishment of specialized agro-processing financial institutions in this sector.
Proposal to launch a Re-structured National Bamboo Mission with an outlay of Rs 1290 crore to promote bamboo sector in a holistic manner.
Two New Funds of Rs 10,000 crore announced for Fisheries and Animal Husbandary sectors; Re-structured National Bamboo Mission gets Rs 1290 crore.
World’s largest Health Protection Scheme covering over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families launched with a family limit upto 5 lakh rupees for secondary and tertiary treatment.
Many farmers are installing solar water pumps to irrigate their fields. Generation of solar electricity is harvesting of Sun by the farmers using their lands. Government of India will take necessary measures and encourage State Governments to put in place a mechanism that their surplus solar power is purchased by the distribution companies or licencees at reasonably remunerative rates.
The Government will set up a Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF) in NABARD for meeting funding requirement of irrigation works. Scope of the Fund would be expanded to cover specified command area development projects.
Targeting that every poor of this country may have his own house by 2022, Prime Minister Awas Yojana has been launched in rural and urban areas of the country. Under Prime Minister Awas Scheme Rural, 51 lakhs houses in year 2017-18 and 51 lakh houses during 2018-19 which is more than one crore houses will be constructed exclusively in rural areas. In urban areas the assistance has been sanctioned to construct 37 lakh houses.
Ground water irrigation scheme under Prime Minister Krishi Sinchai Yojna- Har Khet ko Pani- will be taken up in 96 deprived irrigation districts where less than 30% of the land holdings gets assured irrigation presently.
Strengthening the railway network and enhancing Railways’ carrying capacity has been a major focus of the Government. Railways’ Capex for the year 2018-19 has been pegged at Rs 1,48,528 crore. A large part of the Capex is devoted to capacity creation. 18,000 kilometers of doubling, third and fourth line works and 5K kilometers of gauge conversion would eliminate capacity constraints and transform almost entire network into Broad Gauge.
In the last three years, the domestic air passenger traffic grew at 18% per annum and our airline companies placed orders for more than 900 aircrafts. Regional connectivity scheme of UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) initiated by the Government last year shall connect 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads across the country.