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Renewing India
By Kumar Mangalam Birla, Aditya Birla Group
What made Finance Minister Arun to production costs. MSPs will be fixed at
Jaitley’s budget stand out is its strong 1.5 times production costs, a move that
focus on rural markets and the farm should make life better for Indian
sector. Although there are no major farmers who suffer annually through
offerings for industry or the service unpredictable weather conditions and
sector, the Budget announced measures volatile market cycles. The Minister’s
that will boost long term sustainable statement that farm incomes should
growth by focusing on improving the double by 2022 is a bright ray of
health of the farm and rural sector. sunshine that will hopefully be followed
Undoubtedly these measures will bring by other much-needed reforms in the
about a positive economic impact by farm sector.
triggering greater rural consumption.
The second trend in the 2018 Budget was
Another clear trend is the emphasis on a slew of social upliftment-related
social development initiatives. It is measures focused on quality of life. About
heartening that the government intends eight crore women will get free gas
to work towards improving India’s connections, enabling them to move away
quality-of-life metrics by investing much- from wood-based cooking and poor air
needed funds in the rural and social conditions. Housing for all by 2022 is
sectors. The theme for 2018 is obvious – another social target of the current
it’s inclusive growth, or to put it simply, administration. A National Health
Making India Better. Protection scheme is included that will
cover 10 crore deserving families.
The focus on the farm sector is a strong
indicator of this vision. The agriculture Education came under the government
sector contributes only about 17% of the scanner with the move to transition more
GDP, far below the value contribution of of India’s classrooms away from
the industrial (~29%) and services blackboard-and-chalk towards digital
(~54%) sectors. Yet the farm sector is literacy. The Minister also announced
responsible for the livelihoods of over funds for skilling India’s youth – all
half of India’s workforce, and is certainly measures to improve living conditions for
entitled to greater state support. India’s underprivileged.
The Budget is an indicator that the However, the Budget is not completely
government hopes to reduce market socialist. To strengthen India’s capability
challenges and alleviate livelihood to hold its own in the rapidly changing
conditions in India’s agricultural global marketplace, the government
economy. The Rs.11 lakh crore agri-credit reaffirmed its focus on digital initiatives -
announced will go a long way towards - for instance, the move to shift from cash
this. Instead of the conventional route of to e-payments at toll booths and the
farm subsidies, the government has national programme to raise India’s
delivered more sensible relief via capabilities in artificial intelligence. Plans
minimum support pricing (MSP) linked to connect 250,000 villages to the digital
world via optical fibre network and 5
