The Green Budget?

On February 1st, 2018 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget to parliament for the fiscal year 2018-19. We, Cedrus Wealth Partners are here to give a brief information on why this budget is called the green budget, what it brings to the table & how it is going to affect the economy of India in the coming year.

During the Budget Speech of February 2016, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley quoted Mahatma Gandhi’s statement “A right cause never fails”. After two years since the budget was introduced to change the outlook of the Indian economy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s 2018 budget is the single most stand out item. The expert studies show that this year’s budget is made for rural economic development which is to be integrated into the overall improvement of poverty alleviation and wealth creations for the farmers.

"This year's Budget will focus on agriculture, infrastructure and healthcare", says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Arun Jaitley traced schemes surrounding agriculture, organic farming, animal husbandry and fishery, ensuring the rural industry. He also added with the saying that "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a clarion call to double farmers' income by 2022, the 75th year of India's independence". The scheme introduced by Arun Jaitley of providing health care scheme to cover 10 crore poor families by providing beneficiaries of Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year is the world’s largest government-funded health care programme.

Keeping in mind on how cold storage facilities helps to prevent agriculture produce losses, more focus is kept on the cold storage industry. Expanding other income streams such as dairy, poultry, horticulture, fishery etc will add to agriculture wealth. Enrolling them for a rural resurgence by leveraging technology will boost the industry in every aspect. For this Arun Jaitley announces Rs. 200 crore for the organic farming sector.

Credit: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=176062

The government has also seen the potential of Bamboo. The budget has allocated a whopping Rs.1290 crore to promote the bamboo sector. “Bamboo is Green Gold. We have removed bamboo grown outside forest areas from the definition of trees. Now, I propose to launch a Restructured National Bamboo Mission with the budget.” said Arun Jaitley.

Even though the budget has been increased the credits to agriculture sector from 10 lakh crore to 11 lakh crore, will the farmers who are already reeling under past debts recover? Will they be able to handle and comprehend these new schemes? Are they in position to take new debts? Only time will uncover how strong this GREEN BUDGET is.