Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday that the participation of the youth in agriculture is lower than in other sectors, as private innovation and investment have stayed away, and added that the FY24 budget has attempted to bridge this gap by proposing an open source-based platform in agriculture.
“The open source-based platform in agriculture will be just as UPI is for digital transactions and open new doors for innovation and investments by agritechs,” Modi said at a post-budget webinar with stakeholders.
He said that the Union Budget 2023-24, like the budgets of the past 8-9 years, focuses on the farm sector, and that steps are being taken to reduce India’s dependence on inported oilseeds and edible oils. The Prime Minister said India’s agriculture budget has increased manifold to Rs 1.25 trillion during the past nine years.
“Before we came to power in 2014, the budget for the agriculture sector was less than Rs 25,000 crore. Today it is more than Rs 1.25 trillion,” he said.
Modi said the government has been working on a mission to boost domestic production of pulses and oilseeds. He noted that India spends around Rs 1.5 trillion on importing cooking oil.
The Prime Minister also mentioned that the Budget focuses on agri-tech startups and said that an accelerator fund too has been proposed to create new funding avenues for them.
He said the number of startups in farming has risrn to over 3,000 from a negligible number nine years ago.
Modi also said a new revolution is taking place in the cooperative sector, and added that the cooperative sector, which was only limited to a few states earlier, is now expanding across the country.
This was the second webinar addressed by the Prime Minister. On Thursday, he had elaborately spoken on the topic of green growth. In all, he is scheduled to address 12 post-budget webinars till March 11.
The webinars are being organised by various ministries/departments to build on the “Saptarishi” priorities outlined in the Union Budget 2023-24.
The idea of post-budget webinars was conceptualised by the Prime Minister to bring together all stakeholders for bringing synergy in implementation of Budget announcements, an official statement had said earlier this week.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha on February 1.
