24 FEB , Delhi: The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi addressed the post-budget webinar on ‘Agriculture and Cooperatives’ today. It is the second of a series of 12 post-budget webinars organized by the government to seek ideas and suggestions for the effective implementation of the initiatives announced in the Union Budget 2023.
Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister highlighted the importance given to the agricultural sector in this year’s budget as well as budgets of the past 8-9 years. He informed that the agricultural budget which was less than 25 thousand crores in 2014 has been increased to more than 1 lakh 25 thousand crores today. “Every Budget in recent years has been called a budget for Gaon, Gareeb and Kisan”, Shri Modi said.
Noting that India’s agricultural sector remained distressed for a long time since independence, the Prime Minister pointed out the country’s dependence on the outside world for our food security. He highlighted how India’s farmers transformed the situation by not only making the nation ‘atmanirbhar’ (self-sufficient) but also capable of exporting food grains. “Today India is exporting many types of agricultural products”, the Prime Minister said as he shed light on the efforts of the government to make domestic and international markets accessible to the farmers. He also stated that India’s goal should not be limited to rice or wheat when it comes to self-sufficiency or export. Highlighting the imports in the agricultural sector, the Prime Minister gave examples of expenditures of Rs 17,000 crores in 2021-22 for the import of pulses, 25,000 crores for the import of Value Added Food Products, and Rs 1.5 lakh crore spent on the import of edible oils in 2021-22. He further added that the sum of all agricultural imports was about Rs 2 lakh crores. The Prime Minister emphasized that various decisions are being continuously taken in the budget to promote the agricultural sector so that the nation becomes ‘atmanirbhar’ and the money used for imports can reach our farmers. He gave examples of increase in MSP, promotion of pulse production, increase in the number of food processing parks, and work in mission mode to become completely self-sufficient in terms of edible oil.