Union Budget 2013: 'Income growth for farmers remains an untouched area'

LUCKNOW: The general budget has failed to excite Uttar Pradesh, except in parts. With the fine print of what the state gets unavailable as of now, industry experts are anticipating significant gains in at least a few sectors. For his projections of the farm sector, Chidambaram has been accused of complacency. "Both the draft 12th Five Year Plan and the Economic Survey have pointed towards a stagnant farmers' income on account of rising input costs and 8% hike in labour cost. However, income augmentation for the farmers remains an untouched area," said Sudhir Panwar, president of Kisan Jagriti Manch.Perceptible benefits for the farm sector will, however, pour in, especially in western UP, with Chidambaram's freshly-launched crop diversification scheme. Though only a portion of Rs 500 crore corpus will reach UP, the scheme will impact all those area that have been saturated by the green revolution and where crop diversification will mean fresh crop cycles beyond the traditional crops of rice and wheat.In a decision that might hit a section of sugar mill owners in the state, the Union Budget has also proposed a reduction in transport subsidy for sugar export. For the cane farmers, this will have a cascading effect of lowered incomes.Though the decision to set up a 100 crore equity fund for farmers and the thrust on Farmers Producer companies is also being seen as a welcome move to directly link farmers to the markets, the impact of such a scheme in UP could be delayed, since the state has, so far, not been able to kickstart the scheme. The same also applies to the fresh allocation for micro-irrigation facilities in the country. Though water harvesting for dark zones, if implemented in UP, will offer significant gains, this is another area where the state has been unable to take affirmative action in the past, or capitalise on the funds that have been allocated in the past.Budget 2013> Union Budget 2013> Economic Survey