The Modi government should spell out clearly what it wants to double by 2022 — nominal or real incomes.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (NABARD) 34th foundation day celebrations on July 12 saw a day-long deliberation on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for “doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022”. This was an event at Vigyan Bhavan in the national capital, where the ministries of agriculture and finance and the NITI Aayog also pitched in.
The Prime Minister had shared his “dream” first at a kisan rally. From there, it found formal mention in the finance minister’s Budget speech for 2016-17. Subsequently, the Centre even constituted a special inter-ministerial committee to prepare a blueprint for realising this dream.
Sadly, for all these concerted official efforts, there are ambiguities surrounding the dream itself. As professional economists, we feel compelled to state the challenges as explicitly as possible.
We may start by saying that nothing is impossible; dreaming big, that too for the long-neglected cause of farmers, is a sign of boldness. But realisation of any bold dreams requires four things: a clearly defined vision, a carefully crafted strategy for achieving it, sufficient financial resources to support the efforts and, above all, a champion minister/official/technocrat to lead and persevere on the path until the goal is reached.
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