It is indeed a visionary budget. Goals have been precisely set. Means are vaguely stated. Specific resource in or out of budget is not identified. Let us see how food price inflation is dealt in the Budget 2010. Increased food supply is identified as solution. The means to manage supply and demand have been stated. To increase yield from farm, the means stated are R & D for farm research; Incentive directly to farmers; assured support price and facility of crop insurance. To manage demand the stated means are targeting subsidy to the needy to buy food by expediting UID project. Considering prevalence of small and marginal farm holdings in the country; density of population; constraints on fresh water resource and pollution concern associated with agriculture, the measures announced in the Budget 2010 are totally inadequate to improve supply immediately. Globalisation can also be used as tool to supplement food supply. Instead of the Government acting as tools for domestic capitalists to realise their global ambitions such as acquiring foreign telecom companies, the domestic capitalists may be encouraged to do commercial farming in vast tracts of land in Brazil and Argentina for getting assured food supplies. India’s clout in G 77 or G 21 Grouping could be used to build this mutually beneficial relationship considering that these Latin American countries face hurdles to export farm products to Europe. It is not that Indian farmers are to be neglected. They deserve encouragement on par with Petroleum prospecting companies in India that enjoy price parity with international price for petroleum crude. Similarly support price for farm crops in India can as well be the prevailing support price in Europe and the U.S. To manage demand, UID project would be a great enabling tool. The project announced last year should have been completed by now. Yet the Finance Minister has now allocated a meagre sum of Rs 1900 crores for the project that may cost about Rs 6000 crores at an estimated Rs 50 per head for each UID for 120 crores of population.
K.V.A. Iyer
Tel: +91 484 2331922
Cell: +91-98471 31136
Email: krpm12000@yahoo.co.uk
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