Skip to main content

Jaitley kicks off prebudget talks with unions and farmer groups

By
Jaitley kicks off prebudget talks with unions and farmer groups
Finance minister Arun Jaitley met trade unions and farmers groups on Tuesday, starting the process of pre-Budget consultations with key stakeholders.Jaitley said to achieve the goal of doubling farmers’ income by 2022 there was need to improve storage and marketing facilities for agri produce so that farmers get better price, a statement issued by the finance ministry said.
He said there was need for water conservation, incentivising agro processing and balanced use of fertilisers in order to ensure higher agriculture productivity.Farmers groups suggested that India has constantly pursued ‘Food Policy’ and Budget 2018-19 is an opportunity to shift to ‘Farmers’ Policy’. There is need to reduce pressure on the land by creating off-farm jobs, they suggested according to the finance ministry statement.
A ‘Price Deficiency Payment Mechanism’ was suggested for those crops where procurement cannot be ensured to provide more remunerative prices to farmers.Other suggestions included an ‘Agriculture Debt Relief Package for the entire country, deeper focus on dairy, fruit and vegetable items, starting ‘Operation Veggies’. The focus should be on TOP —Tomato, Onion and Potato — as there is maximum volatility in their prices.
Thrust to warehouses, cold storages at the local level and give boost to agro processing, food and fertilisers subsidy through DBT, higher prices for urea and lower for other fertilisers. More focus to piggery, bee keeping, honey production, mushroom production and fisheries, and tax reliefs to the plantation companies were some of the other suggestions.
Twelve points
In a separate meeting, the trade unions presented a common memorandum of 12 point charter of demands.The demands included allocations for social sector including health and education that can be funded by taxing the rich who have capacity to pay, effective measures against deliberate tax and loan repayment faults, minimum wages for all workers, stop disinvestment and strategic sale of PSUs and same wages for contract workers as permanent workers doing same work.No FDI in crucial sectors like defence production, railways, retail trade and financial sector among others, higher exemption ceiling of.`5 lakh for income tax and EPF benefit for unorganised sector workers were some of the other suggestions.
The Economic Times, New Delhi, 6th December 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Data storage norm splits digital payments industry

By
Data storage norm splits digital payments industry  India’s nascent digital payment industry could be thrown into disarray due to the demand by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that all user data be stored within the country, fears an industry grouping, which has termed the decision as “heavy-handed”, even as others, including the country’s largest digital payment provider Paytm, have hailed the move.  In a bid to narrow the growing schism, the industry is planning to send a formal representation to the regulator highlighting its concerns, a top official told ET.  “We are trying to build a consensus on the issue," said the person adding that the representation to the central bank will be ready this week.  RBI on April 6, mandated all payment companies—global and local—to set up data storage facilities within India by October. The stringent six-month deadline has attracted the ire of several sections of the industry that fear it will lead to a disruption of wel...
18 comments
Read more

Offer’s for all of you

By
Great Bumper Dhamaka Offer’s for all of you... It's Time to see your Business Online, WebeCreator Offer Website Designing with domain & Email @ nominal charges. For a year For More information visit us http://goo.gl/KlpppF call on 9890151261/9773197533  drop a mail to sales@webecreator.com
Post a Comment
Read more

Sebi to finalise options in commodities today

By
The Commodity Derivatives Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi) will meet on Friday with senior officials of the latter, to give a final shape to the rules on options trading in commodity futures, beside revising the warehousing norms to ensure good delivery on settlement. The decision taken, after discussing with the advisory committee, will be placed before the regulator’s board, to finalise the regulations. According to knowledgeable sources, three commodities in each segment, agricultural and non- agricultural, have been proposed for introducing options. It appears commodities from the soya and guar segments are preferred in the former. From the non- agri segment, it is likely that gold, silver and crude oil will be finalised. All these These have better liquidity and both the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange and the Multi Commodity Exchange, respectively, will be able to introduce the options. In the equity segments, options ar...
17 comments
Read more