Augmenting Farmer Income: Odisha Increases Budget Allocation To Agriculture and Allied Sector By More Than 21 Percent

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari has presented the full fledged Budget of Rs 2 lakh crore in the Assembly Saturday. While the priority for the government has been on all the welfare schemes and important sectors such as Health, Education and Infrastructure development, the Agriculture sector has been the biggest gainer in the Budget. With an aim to augment the income of the farmers of the state, the state government has made specific increases in the various farmer oriented schemes and departments. The total allocation for the farm sector has been increased by a whooping 21 percent to Rs 21, 166 crore for the financial year 2022-23. This is the highest ever allocation for the farm sector in the state. Being an agriculture oriented state and more than three crore people associated with the agriculture sector directly or indirectly, the increase in the allocation will have a tremendous impact their income augmentation.

The Government’s flagship welfare scheme – the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation or the KALIA scheme has been allocated Rs 1874 Crore rupees. There has also been a provision of interest free loan of Rs 50,000 to the farmers under the KALIA scheme. The Finance Minister has also allocated Rs 161 crore for agriculture research and education and Rs 968 crore for control of floods in the budget for FY 2022-23. The focus for the government has been on the use of technology in the agriculture sector. The allocation of higher amounts with an aim of early completion of the Major Irrigation Projects of the state will help improve the irrigation facilities in the coming days. The government is also taking steps to diversify the cultivation pattern and giving a thrust to Horticulture sector to increase the income of the farmers. The Horticulture sector has been allocated Rs 312 crore.

The total allocation for the irrigation projects stands at Rs 2493 Crore. The government aims to irrigate around 2 lakh 80 thousand hectares of farm land in the coming days. The interest subsidy for the farmers will be Rs 907 crore for FY 2022-23. Likewise the government has also provided Rs 102 crore for poultry farming. A corpus fund of Rs 100 crore has been set up to procure food grains other than paddy. The Government has also made provisions for digging 12,500 deep borewells in the state in the next one year. The state also has made allocation of Rs 2493 Crore under the PM Krishi Sinchai Yojana.

The focus for the Government of Odisha led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been to raise the standard of living of the farmers by augmenting their income. In the last two decades, with important interventions by the government, the farmer income has risen manifolds and the state’s agriculture production has also increased significantly.