Budget 2024: Modi govt’s push for finding fertile grounds to tap farm votes before Lok Sabha elections

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Key Points

As Budget 2024 looms closer, the agricultural sector may get the spotlight as it is the life support for about 250 million farmers and informal labourers.. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman may propose in the budget to increase the amount of money transferred under its flagship direct benefit transfer scheme - Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi or PM-Kisan - by about 50% to 9,000 per year from the current 6,000, ET reported based on a poll of economists...

The Ministry of Agriculture accounts for 2.8 per cent of the total Union Budget and last year the agriculture sector was allocated Rs 1,25,036 crore..

At a time when the central government has to face voters in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, some experts suggest that the government may announce some populist measures in the Budget like additional allocations to Direct Benefit Schemes...

"An increase in the PM-Kisan (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi) installment is likely, given the administrative ease and the almost immediate impact that an unconditional cash transfer has on alleviating the economic situation of the beneficiary," Saini said.. Ideally, this transfer should be targeted to the small and marginal farmers and also replace some of the other in-kind transfers like the fertilizer or power subsidies, however, given the election time, there appears to be a low probability of such alignment, she added...

Tulsi Lingareddy, senior economist, Financial Markets, Sustainable Finance and Agriculture, also feels that there is a strong possibility that the government may introduce populist measures for farmers in the budget. Measures may be specific to income support schemes such as direct benefit transfers and promotion of agricultural market infrastructure through incentives, she added...

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