Budget hiked, Agri Ministry returned over Rs 1 Lakh crore in 5 years

Budget hiked, Agri Ministry returned over Rs 1 Lakh crore in 5 years

A report by the Agriculture Ministry showed that although the government has hiked the ministry’s budget in recent years, the ministry has not used it fully as it surrendered over Rs 1 lakh crore in the last five years.

As per the report titled “Accounts at a Glance for the Year 2022-2023”, the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare (DA&FW) surrendered Rs 21,005.13 crore of its annual allocation of Rs 1.24 lakh crore during the last financial year (April 2022-March 2023). This is almost four times the amount surrendered by the department during the previous year 2021-22, which was Rs 5,152.6 crore of its 1.23 lakh crore allocation.

The department surrendered Rs 23,824.53 crore in 2020-21, Rs 34,517.7 crore in 2019-20, and Rs 21,043.75 crore in 2018-19.

The Department of Agricultural Research and Education, which also comes under the ministry, has surrendered Rs 9 lakh of its total allocation of Rs 8,658.91 crore in 2022-23, Rs 1.81 crore in 2021-22, Rs 600 crore in 2020-21, Rs 232.62 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 7.9 crore in 2018-2019.

With the Centre launching the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi during the financial year 2018-19, the combined budget of the two departments, under the Agriculture Ministry, increased from Rs 54,000 crore (or 2.3% of the Centre’s total budget of Rs 24.42 lakh crore) in 2018-19 to Rs 1.32 lakh crore (or 3.5% of the total Rs 39.44 lakh crore during 2022-23.

The scheme’s annual allocation has been in the range of Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 75,000 crore over the last five years.

The government, however, marginally reduced the ministry’s total allocation to 1.25 lakh crore during the current financial year 2023-24 from Rs 1.32 lakh crore in 2022-23, perhaps due to non-utilisation of funds.

The issue of fund surrender by the Agriculture Ministry has also been highlighted by the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Food Processing, headed by P C Gaddigoudar, asking the government to “avoid” the “practice” of fund surrender.

The panel report Demand for Grants (2023-24) of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, presented before the Parliament on March 13, 2023, said: “… the surrender of funds is mainly on account of less requirement under NES (North Eastern States), SCSP (Schedule Caste Sub-Plan) and Tribal Area Sub-Plan (TASP) Components”.

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