Budget 2020-21: Naveen Gives Major Share to Agriculture

Bhubaneswar (Pramit Pramathes): The Finance Minister of Odisha, Niranjan Pujari presented a Rs 1.50 lakh crore Budget for 2020-21 in the Assembly yesterday, apart from a separate Agriculture Budget of Rs 19,408 crore.
This is for the first time that Odisha switched to the digital method to reduce printing of documents for the Budget. Over 1,000 big trees were saved in the state’s bid to present a paperless Budget. With an objective to boost the socio-economic growth of the farmers, the Naveen government has proposed a massive allocation for the Agriculture and allied sector (13 per cent) in the annual budget 2020-21.
“We propose a budgetary outlay of Rs 1,50,000 crore, which includes outlay of Rs 63,650 crore for administrative expenditure, Rs 74,000 crore for program expenditure, Rs 3,200 crore for disaster response and Rs 7,145 crore for transfer to local bodies and development authorities,” Pujari said in his speech.
In the Agriculture Budget, Rs 3,195 crore was proposed to be allocated for KALIA scheme and Rs 705 crore interest-subsidy for agriculture loan to farmers. Besides, Rs 150 crore is proposed for agricultural research, education and infrastructure, which is five times over last year’s allocation.
While presenting the annual budget 2020-21 in the State Assembly yesterday, Pujari said that the allocation for agriculture has been pegged at Rs 19408 crore, which is about three times that of 2013-14 budget.
While Rs 5115 crore has been transferred to 43 lakh farmers, another Rs 3195 crore will be transferred in 2021. It is Rs 2,416 crore less than 2019-20. The budget has, however, provisioned an additional Rs 110 crore under the KALIA scheme for farmers welfare.
Rs 150 crore has been provided for research and infrastructure development of the Odisha University of Agriculture Technology (OUAT).
In-stream barrages to be built with Rs 12000 crore in 5 years of which Rs 1100 crore has been allocated for this year. All pending irrigation projects would be taken up for expeditious completion this year with an allocation of Rs 1181 crore. Mega-lift irrigation projects allocated Rs 540 crore. Rooftop rainwater harvesting projects allocated Rs 35 crore. All ongoing projects will be completed in 2021, the Budget stated.