Lok Sabha: Govt ducks question on doubling farmers’ income by 2022
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, March 14: The Centre on Tuesday evaded reply to a question on the outcome of the initiatives taken by the government to double farmers’ income by 2022. After winning the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given the plank of doubling farmers’ income by 2022 which had become the buzzword for the NITI Aaayog also.
The BJP MP Rahul Kaswan had sought to know from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare during the Question Hour in the Lok Sabha whether the government reviewed the performance of the schemes implemented to double the income of farmers by the year 2022; whether the government proposes to remove the obstacles hindering the doubling of farmers’ income; and the extent to which the said initiatives improved the quality of life of farmers, particularly small and marginal farmers.
In place of giving direct reply to any of the questions in the written reply, the Ministry gave an exhaustive account of various schemes being undertaken by the Central government. The Ministry also gave details of the expansion in the budgetary support to various schemes for agriculture. But there were no mention of the status of achieving the task to double farmers’ income by 2022.
“Government had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee in April, 2016 to examine issues relating to ‘Doubling of Farmers Income (DFI)’ and recommended strategies to achieve the same. The Committee submitted its final report to the Government in September, 2018 containing the strategy for doubling of farmers’ income through various policies, reforms & programmes,” replied the Ministry stated in its written answer.
IKt further stated that “to achieve the objective, the Committee identified seven sources of income growth — Increase in crop productivity, Increase in livestock productivity, Resource use efficiency and reduction in cost of production, Increase in cropping intensity, Diversification to high value agriculture, Remunerative prices on farmers’ produce, and Shift of surplus manpower from farm to non-farm occupations.”
Subsequently, the Ministry stated that there has been an unprecedented growth in agriculture budget allocation since 2013-14 from Rs 27,662.67 crore to Rs 125035.79 crore in 2023-24. Foodgrain production has increased from 265.05 million tonnes in 2013-14 to record 323.55 million tonnes in 2022-23 (as per 2nd advance estimates) which is the highest ever food grain production, said the Ministry.
“Agri and allied export has increased from $41.86 billion in 2020-21 to $50.24 billion in 2021-22,” said the Ministry, adding that since the launch of PM-Kisan, more than Rs 2.41 lakh crore has been released to over 11 crore farmers.
The Ministry further gave details of all the schemes being run by the Central government in agriculture, but failed to state the percentage of increase in the farmers’ income. Incidentally, the government and the NITI Aayog also had stopped mentioning the issue of the doubling of farmers’ income after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
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