Tamil Nadu to become third state to present separate agriculture budget on Aug 14

Tamil Nadu to become third state to present separate agriculture budget on Aug 14 

On August 14, Tamil Nadu will will become the third state -- after Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh -- to have a separate agricultural budget. 

While experts believe that this is nothing more than a political move, data available from Andhra Pradesh indicates that such a move might actually boost the sector.

The tradition of having an exclusive budget for agriculture was started by Karnataka in 2011-12 in order to give a focused approach to the sector.

 Andhra Pradesh followed in 2013-14, terming it as a policy paper on agriculture. Though states like Telangana, Rajasthan and Bihar too had similar plans, they did not take off due to various legal and technical reasons.

Telangana had backed out of a plan of having a separate budget citing Rule 150 of the legislative guidelines which states that only receipts and expenditure were treated as budget. Telangana was of the view that other plans, programmes and schemes would come under bills and could not be treated as separate budgets.

“Article 202 of the Constitution of India enables states to issue an estimated statement of receipts and expenditure for a financial year (commonly referred to as ‘Budget’ or ‘Annual Financial Statement’). Read in conjunction with List II entries (State), it is apparent that the Constitution confers wide ranging powers to states to make/amend laws on ‘agriculture’ related activities including preparing roadmaps and taking actions aimed at achieving the projected revenue and expense figures,” said Purusharth Singh, partner, Dhir & Dhir Associates, when asked about the legal validity of such a move.

What does it mean for Tamil Nadu?

Tamil Nadu has already invited opinions from various farmer associations and industry bodies for its maiden agriculture Budget. “For Tamil Nadu, this will promote the new varieties of hybrid crops developed in the state. The move will also be helpful in addressing local issues like water management, farming techniques, post-harvest management, giving additional focus to the sector,” 

Based on the 2015-16 Agriculture Census, around 70 per cent of the state’s population is still dependent on agriculture, while it has set an ambitious target of achieving 12.5 million metric tonnes of food grain production during 2021-22.

Agri statistics of Tamil Nadu

70%: State's population dependent on agriculture

35%: Agricultural Households as percentage of rural households

83%: Percentage of agriculture households indebted