Change in States' Agriculture Budgets during the Pandemic

When all the economic activities went standstill during the first lockdown amidst pandemic, agriculture sector proved to be the savior of the economy and livelihoods of millions of farmers and workers. In this context, a number of States such as Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh had made a stride with focus on higher budgetary allocations in 2021-22 BE (more than 10 per cent increase in 2021-22 BE as compared to 2020-21 BE). On the contrary, a number of other States such as Odisha, Haryana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat did not pay adequate attention to this sector in allocating required budgetary resources than what they allocated in 2020-21 BE (even to ensure a minimum incremental budgetary resources required for this sector). Amongst the special category States, Assam and Tripura seem to have prioritised budgetary allocations towards agriculture sector from their respective state budgets in 2021-22 BE. In fact, Himachal Pradesh is the only State, among special category States, where we witnessed a decline in its agriculture sector budget in 2021-22 BE compared to the previous fiscal year.

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