The rural areas should get more budgetary allocation, farmers' leader

As Modi government is gearing up for the upcoming second budget which will be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ETV Bharat had a  conversation with Chaudhary Pushpendra Singh, President, Kisan Shakti Sangh on the budget.

New Delhi: As Modi government is gearing up for the upcoming second budget which will be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ETV Bharat had a conversation on the upcoming budget with Chaudhary Pushpendra Singh, President, Kisan Shakti Sangh.

Pushpendra Singh has said that 70% of the total population of the country resides in the village and therefore the rural area should get the maximum budget, but it is disappointing that this does not happen in reality.

Singh demanded "the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi should be increased 4 times from ₹ 6000 to ₹ 24000. More money should reach the hands of farmers and people in rural India. There should also be provisions in the budget for doing this. The state of the economy will improve only when work will be done to increase demand and demand can be created only when people have money in their hands".

"Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had talked about zero budget farming in the last budget but there are very limited possibilities of zero budget farming in the country. The cost of farming can never be reduced to zero, so the government should come up with plans to reduce the cost of farming and invest more and more in it," Singh said.

To increase the amount of the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, the farmer leader suggests that if the Center does not have much budget, the Central Government and the State Government should share the burden.

"Last year, the budget allocation for the agriculture sector was one lakh twenty thousand crores, while 50% of the people of the country depended on agriculture. The budget of the Ministry of Rural Development was one lakh eighteen thousand crores, whereas the total budget of the Ministry of Animal Husbandry was 2900 crores and the subsidy of fertilizer was about 80000 crores," he said.

"After all, the total budget is 3 lakh 40 thousand crore rupees which the government is spending on rural areas. Out of the total budget of 28 lakh crores, if the government is spending only 3 lakh 40 thousand crores on the rural area, where 70% of the country's population lives, then it is very less," he added.