 "Arvind Subramanian")
Agriculture captured the centrestage in Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian’s second Economic Survey, but the fine print lacked a time-bound roadmap to move forward.
The Survey, which some experts say lays down the path for the overall Budget for 2016-17, spoke mostly on issues which have plagued India’s agriculture sector and also initiatives which are already in progress or have been launched with much-fanfare in the last couple of years by the Narendra Modi.
Initiatives like per drop more crop, JAM, direct subsidy to fertilisers, National Agriculture Market are part of the core focus of the Narendra Modi government.
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Though, a clear shift towards cash crops particularly pulses and boosting irrigation to make farming drought-proof seems to be the underlying message, what was needed was a time-bound action plan. Something, which would have put more urgency into the efforts.
Given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is known to get things executed swiftly, such an approach would have been much appreciated. However, the focus on agriculture is commendable given that rural sector in India has been reeling from the impact of consecutive droughts while urban consumers have had to face the wrath of surge in retail price of pulses in the last few months.
Given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is known to get things executed swiftly, such an approach would have been much appreciated. However, the focus on agriculture is commendable given that rural sector in India has been reeling from the impact of consecutive droughts while urban consumers have had to face the wrath of surge in retail price of pulses in the last few months.
Some notable, differences from previous Surveys has been clear thinking on GM crops and hybrids.
The Survey clearly lays down that GM crops after due testing, debate and analysis are the way forward and the Centre should move in this direction in the next six months.
On the recently issued Cotton Seed Price Control Order, the Survey takes a digramatically opposite view from the government and says that markets should be allowed to determine price, while at the same time more competition could take care of cases of price rigging and cartel formation.
It also puts emphasis on soil mapping instead of just going for distribution of soil health cards.
On fertiliser subsidy, the Survey suggested that as last mile financial inclusion in rural India is poor which would make replacing fertilizer subsidy with cash difficult, an alternative option could be to set a cap on the number of subsidized bags each household can purchase and require biometric authentication at the point of sale (POS).
Overall, the survey does bring out the centrality of agriculture in entire Indian economic context, but does precious little to steer clear from already well documented solutions.
