Agricultural minister Surya Pratap Sahi claimed that funds allocation to “wasteful projects” of previous Uttar Pradesh government has been “stopped” to create resources for farm loan waiver scheme. Further adding that the UP government is concerned and sensitive to the needs of the farmers and will take every possible step to improve their condition and augment their income.
“The wasteful expenses incurred in different schemes of the erstwhile SP government such as Gomati River Front Scheme and Janeshwar Mishra Park have been stopped and funds utilised to make the budgetary provision of Rs 36,000 crore for payment of crop loan outstanding against small and marginal farmers in the state,” Shahi said.
“Rs 67,682 crores have been allocated to agriculture in this Budget, which is the biggest allocation so far. Last Budget’s allocation to agriculture was Rs 29,771 crores. Provision of Rs 19.56 crore has been made for increasing availability of vermicompost in order to augment crop yield. Besides, provision of Rs 261.66 crore made for soil survey and testing,” Shahi said.
A target has been set to distribute 88.82 lakh metric tonnes of fertilisers.
“There is a proposal to implement bio-agriculture programme through traditional agricultural development scheme under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture in 30 districts including all the district of Bundelkhand”, he added.
Provision of Rs 968.57 crore has been made under the National Agriculture Development Scheme, while an arrangement of Rs 450 crore made for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna.
“The state government has proposed to set up 300 custom hiring centres and 582 farm machinery banks under the Submission on Agriculture Mechanisation, so that small and marginal farmers can procure farm equipment on hire and subsidy basis,” Shahi said.
“Provision of Rs 10 crore has been made to set up a centre of excellence for crop research in agriculture and technology universities in Kanpur (vegetables and fruits), Faizabad (paddy), Meerut (agroforestry), Banda (development of rainfed farming) and Allahabad (agro-machinery),” the minister said.
