Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget has all the ingredients to deepen India’s farm crisis
These are desperate times for India.
Rural unemployment was at a 45-year-high while consumption expenditure of rural families fell 9 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, according to a report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the government never released but got leaked to the media in November 2019.
Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the income of farmers grew 0.44 per cent a year only and did not rise ever since.
One way to counter a flailing economy is to infuse cash. So, when Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Budget for financial year 2020-21, economists expected a substantial fiscal stimulus to key government initiatives, such as the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) — a direct cash transfer scheme under which farmers receive income support of Rs 6,000 a year — and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).
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