Nirmala Sitharaman holds first pre-Budget meet on agri, rural issues

New Delhi: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday began her pre-Budget consultations with different stakeholders starting with those from agriculture and rural development sectors in which she stressed the need for ways to eradicate unemployment and poverty.

In her opening remarks, Ms Sitharaman focused on possible measures to boost the economic and social infrastructure of the rural sector and ways to eradicate unemployment and poverty through the development of agriculture and allied sectors as well as non-farm sector, read a statement from the ministry.

Ms Sitharaman said that the concerns of the agriculture sector are high on the priority of the present government and stressed on the representation of the different regions of the country so that their specific needs relating to these sectors can also be considered.

She said that the finance ministry will also hold broad-based consultations with different stakeholders from the fisheries sector to bring about a blue revolution by optimally using the country’s maritime resources. Ms Sitharaman also stressed the need for encouraging start-ups which can remove the segmentation in the agriculture market and help in providing remunerative markets for agriculture products and supplying it to the final consumers at reasonable prices.

The main areas of discussion during the meeting included agriculture research and extension services, rural development, non-farm sector, horticulture, food processing, animal husbandry, fisheries and start-ups in agricultural sector among others, added the statement. The meeting was attended by among others Anurag Thakur, Minister of State for Fina-nce and Corporate Aff-airs, Ramesh Chandra, Member, NITI Aayog, Subhash C. Garg, Finance Secretary, Girish Chandra Murmu, Expenditure Secretary, Ajay Narayan Pandey, Revenue Secretary, and Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation.