Budget 2025: A roadmap to empower farmers and reignite rural India
https://www.dailypioneer.com/2025/columnists/budget-2025--a-roadmap-to-empower-farmers-and-reignite-rural-india.html ...
Reassess Inflation Control Policies
Policies like export bans, stock limits on agricultural produce, and the Food Corporation of India (FCI) dumping grains at below-market prices undermine farmers’ profitability. These interventions should be re-evaluated to balance inflation control with fair returns for farmers. Encouraging exports of surplus produce and ensuring better storage infrastructure can reduce post-harvest losses. Developing a decentralised agricultural pricing system driven by real-time market data can align domestic policies with global demand trends. A Vision for Fairness and Growth India’s agricultural sector has long been the backbone of its economy, yet farmers have faced systemic neglect and economic disparity.
Over the last decade, the government has written off Rs12.30 lakh crore in big corporate loans, while farmers continue to struggle under mounting debt (Rs 18 lakh crore) and policies that fail to guarantee fair prices for their produce.The 2025 Budget presents an opportunity to correct these imbalances. By addressing these critical issues, the government can improve farmers’ lives, spur rural demand, catalyse GDP growth and lay the foundation for a more equitable and sustainable agricultural future. It’s time to honour the farmers who feed the nation by delivering the support they deserve. more
Reassess Inflation Control Policies
Policies like export bans, stock limits on agricultural produce, and the Food Corporation of India (FCI) dumping grains at below-market prices undermine farmers’ profitability. These interventions should be re-evaluated to balance inflation control with fair returns for farmers. Encouraging exports of surplus produce and ensuring better storage infrastructure can reduce post-harvest losses. Developing a decentralised agricultural pricing system driven by real-time market data can align domestic policies with global demand trends. A Vision for Fairness and Growth India’s agricultural sector has long been the backbone of its economy, yet farmers have faced systemic neglect and economic disparity.
Over the last decade, the government has written off Rs12.30 lakh crore in big corporate loans, while farmers continue to struggle under mounting debt (Rs 18 lakh crore) and policies that fail to guarantee fair prices for their produce.The 2025 Budget presents an opportunity to correct these imbalances. By addressing these critical issues, the government can improve farmers’ lives, spur rural demand, catalyse GDP growth and lay the foundation for a more equitable and sustainable agricultural future. It’s time to honour the farmers who feed the nation by delivering the support they deserve. more
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https://www.dailypioneer.com/2025/columnists/union-budget-2025--transforming-agriculture-for-a-sustainable-and-inclusive-future.html Transitioning from farm to factory, given how the vastly the value-addition related earning capacity varies, with agriculture and allied activities having incomes that remain the lowest, requires budget support. more
Feb 12
One of the great injustices is not taxing agro income which includes income, for the most part, by trading of agro commodities. While marginal and small agriculturalists can be spared, there is no justification not to tax income of glob-trotting, luxury automobile-owning agriculturalists; nor politicians who show crores of rupees of tax-free agricultural income from their rooftop gardens like a former finance minister. more
Feb 11
Farmers are at receiving end of India's growing inequality. Transitioning from farm to factory, given how the vastly the value-addition related earning capacity varies, with agriculture and allied activities having incomes that remain the lowest, is not going to solve the inequality problem in India. more
Feb 11
Markets are at highest of the highs, celebrating the rising number of mutual fund folios, demat accounts and booming indices. "What the Modi government got wrong with this Budget and in it's economic signalling is moving away from its generally upbeat messaging of "India is on the rise. growth will get steeper, and markets are red hot and will get hotter'." "Let's stick to what we know the Indian middle class isn't. That is, being grateful. The heat the Modi government is feeling will cool down soon. But name the one person who's done more than any other Indian across three generations to create, expand and enrich this new middle class. By deregulating, burning the licence-quota raj, opening imports, cut- ting taxes and tariffs, and pushing the same middle class towards the markets with gen- erous tax incentives. Then, let us ask: Who is the one leader that this middle class has detested most of all since, say, 2011? You've guessed right. He is Manmohan Singh. In 1999, he and his party checked his popularity in India's most middle-class constituency by fielding him for the Lok Sabha in South Delhi. He lost. What did they expect? A thank-you vote? He's only got contempt instead. This middle class comes armed with entitlement, not burdened with gratitude." more
Feb 08
