Economic Survey 2020-21: The food subsidy bill is becoming unmanageably large and there's need to revise CIP to reduce the bulging food subsidy bill, says the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament today.
"While it is difficult to reduce the economic cost of food management in view of rising commitment towards food security, there is a need to consider the revision of CIP to reduce the bulging food subsidy bill," it suggests.
The Survey says showing tremendous re resilience amid COVID crisis, agriculture and allied activities were the "sole bright spot" amid the slide in GDP performance of other sectors. The sector clocked a 3.4 per cent growth at constant prices during 2020-21.
Provisional CSO estimates released on May 29, 2020, say the share of agriculture and allied sectors in Gross Value Added (GVA) at current prices is 17.8 per cent for the year 2019-20.
In FY20, food grain production stood at 296.65 million tonnes, higher by 11.44 million tonnes than FY19 when India produced 285.21 million tonnes foodgrain.
"The agricultural credit flow target for FY20 was fixed at Rs 13,50,000 crore. Against this, the achievement was Rs 13,92,469.81 crore. For FY21, it's Rs 15 lakh crore and till November 30, 2020, Rs 9,73,517.80 crore has been disbursed," the Survey states.
Under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, as of January 12, claims worth Rs 90,000 crores have already been paid out, the survey says, adding that Rs 18,000 crore has been deposited directly in the bank account of 9 crore farmer families in December 2020 under the PM-KISAN scheme.
The Economic Survey has observed that in-spite of an unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and consequential challenges, the infrastructure sector of Indian economy are on a fast recovery path. The Survey was tabled in the Parliament today by the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman.
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