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Finance Commission holds meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare states to be incentivized on their Agricultural Reforms agenda |
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26-6-2020 | |||
The 15th Finance Commission headed by Chairman, Shri N. K. Singh including its Members today held a meeting with the Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar and senior officials of his Ministry. In view of fact that in the third tranche of ₹ 20 lakh crores fiscal stimulus package, Government of India had announced various measures to boost agriculture to strengthen Infrastructure Logistics and Capacity Building for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Processing Sectors and in order to re-orient its proposed formulation on the agriculture reforms and incentives for exports in the light of para 7 of the ToR, FC-XV had called for this discussion with the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and hence this meeting. Earlier the Fifteenth Finance Commission had also constituted a Committee on Agricultural Exports under the chairmanship of Mr Sanjeev Puri, CMD, ITC. Some of the key points related to Agri-exports discussed in the Committee meetings so far are given below:
Today’s discussions focused on the recent announcements (post-Covid) made by the Government related to agriculture sector which would be taken into consideration by the FC-XV for its award period from 2021-22 to 2025-26. Primary among them are:
A detailed presentation was made by the Ministry which included the recent steps taken by the Union Government for the upliftment of the sector. The Commission was also made a ‘presentation’ on the implementation and budget requirement of Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE)/ ICAR Central Sector Schemes during 2021-22 to 2025-26. The meeting also held discussions on the framework/recommendations given by FC-XV in its report for 2020-21 regarding performance grants to States for agricultural reforms. In a significant move the Finance Commission alongwith the Ministry of Agriculture has been set up a Group consisting of Member XVFC (Shri Ramesh Chand), Secretary (Agriculture) and Secretary (DARE) to devise mechanism for incentivisation of states in areas of agricultural reforms agenda for the purpose of inclusion in the Commission’s recommendations in its final report. |
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