Soil health cards to expand and Urea subsidy cut likely The Narendra Modi government’s first Budget is all set to lay a roadmap to cut down excessive expenditure on urea subsidy and imports of edible oil and pulses, which together account for over Rs 1,60,000 crores each year. Also, the Budget will unveil the Agricultural Price Stabilisation Fund in a more robust manner to insulate farmers from adverse impact to their incomes and also to curb inflationary pressure. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stating that he seeks a major turnaround in agriculture, the Budget, to be presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley on July 10, will seek to make a substantial allocation of funds for the farm sector. “The government spends Rs 80,000 crores each year on subsidy for urea. There is an assessment this can be cut down by a minimum of 50 per cent, as farmers overuse them. The Budget will make significantly higher allocations to ensure that soil health cards are issued to farmers in a time-bound manner,” a source said. Barring Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, that have issued soil health cards to 63 lakh farmers and 15,000 villages respectively, besides Gujarat, other states have not done enough work in this regard. Furthermore, India spends Rs 60,000 crores and Rs 12,000 crores each year on import of edible oils and pulses respectively. “The Budget will make significantly higher allocation to the Agriculture Technology Infrastructure Fund to become self-reliant on pulses and edible oils, while also making technical intervention in farming a huge success in the coming years on the lines of Israel,” a source added. Also, to take forward Mr Modi’s idea of promoting organic farming and use of organic manure, the Budget is likely to make significant financial allocations for states. Mr Jaitley is likely to significantly enhance the allocation for the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna, under which the Centre assists states for agricultural development to achieve the NDA government’s target of higher growth in agriculture.