Finance Commission group suggests to set up state-led plan for agri exports

A high-level group on agricultural exports, set up by the 15th Finance Commission, on Friday suggested creation of a state-led export plan with the private sector playing an anchor role and the Centre acting as an enabler.

The High Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Agricultural Exports was set up to recommend measurable performance incentives for states to encourage agricultural exports and to promote crops for enabling high import substitution.

The main recommendations made by the panel include focusing on 22 crop value chains. It also suggested creation of a state-led export plan with participation from stakeholders. It suggested that the private sector should play an anchor role and the Centre should be an enabler in the process.

The group also suggested robust institutional mechanism to fund and support implementation.

The Group in its report has recommended a state-led export plan, a business plan for a crop value chain cluster that will lay out the opportunity, initiatives and investment required to meet the desired value chain export aspiration.

These plans will be action-oriented, time-bound and outcome-focused. The Group was of the view that the private sector players had a pivotal role to play in ensuring demand orientation and focus on value addition; ensuring project plans are feasible, robust, implementable and appropriately funded.

It also said the players also had a role in providing funds for technology based on business case and for creating urgency and discipline for project implementation.

The high-level group is of the view that India's agricultural export has the potential to grow from $40 billion to $70 billion in a few years.

The estimated investment in agricultural export could be at $8-10 billion across inputs, infrastructure, processing and demand enablers.

Additional exports are likely to create an estimated 7-10 million jobs and will lead to higher farm productivity and farmer income.