India unveils budget focusing on agriculture, rural poor

The Indian government Monday unveiled its budget for the fiscal year 2016-17, aimed at boosting agriculture and appealing to the rural poor.

Presenting the budget in the parliament, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley outlined some nine pillars of his budget, first being agriculture and farmers' welfare, followed by social reforms and infrastructure as well as recapitalising the banking system.

He pledged to invest billions of rupees to improve lives of farmers and the poor and to boost the rural economy and double the incomes of farmers by 2022. He said the government has allocated 12.7 billion U.S. dollars for "rural development as a whole."

"We are grateful to our farmers for being the backbone of the country's food security. We need to give back to our farmers. We need to think beyond food security to income security. We will double the income of farmers by 2022," the finance minister said.

He also announced setting up 89 projects for irrigation, doubling investments in rural roads to help farmers get produce to markets, getting cooking gas to millions of poor households and funds for women entrepreneurs from underprivileged families.

Apart from raising spending on a massive rural employment scheme, a crop insurance program and increasing rural access to the Internet, Jaitley said the government would also work to ensure all the country's villages have electricity by 2018.

Noting that the Indian economy has held good, despite a global slump, the finance minister said the government is bent on achieving its goal of cutting the fiscal deficit to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product for the fiscal year 2016-17 from 3.9 percent the year before.

Immediately after the budget, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said farmers and rural India have been the focus of the budget as he congratulated the finance minister.

Experts say there are an estimated 120 million farmers in India and Jaitley's announcement of increased spending on rural economy, health and social sectors all aims at boosting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's prospects in the coming elections in a number of states.

"India has a huge rural population that has been hit by severe droughts. With polls due in some agricultural states like West Bengal in the east and Uttar Pradesh in the north in next 12 months, the government is under pressure to address the rural economy," said Prof. Ajay Singh, an expert.

He added, "Two thirds of India's population live in the rural areas. So the budget is agriculture and rural sector centric."