Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday began his pre-Budget consultative meeting process by separately meeting representatives of agriculture groups and trade union groups.
“Mr. Arun Jaitley said that there is a need to conserve water, incentivise agro processing and promote balanced use of fertilisers in order to ensure higher agriculture productivity,” the Ministry said in a release. “The Finance Minister said that in order to achieve the goal of doubling the farmer’s income by 2022, there is need for better storage and marketing facilities for the farmers’ produce so that they get better prices for their produce.”
The agricultural groups made several suggestions, including the need to reduce the pressure on land by creating off-farm jobs.
The major demands made by the trade union groups included increased budgetary allocations for social sectors including health and education, necessary financial resources to be raised internally by taxing the rich, effective measures against deliberate tax and loan repayment defaults, and minimum wages for all workers.
