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Agriculture highlights : amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules to ensure availability of drugs at reasonable prices and promote use of generic medicines . New rules for regulating medical devices will also be formulated . These rules will be internationally harmonized and attract investment into this sector . This will reduce the cost of such devices .
Farming and allied sectors get a bigger pie
Agriculture and Allied sectors will get about one lakh 87 thousand crore in the budget , 24 percent higher than the previous year . The Finance Minister said that the Government has proposed to increase the allocations for
Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana- National Rural Livelihood Mission for promotion of skill development and livelihood opportunities for people in rural areas to Rs 4,500 crore in 2017-18 . The allocation for Prime Minister ’ s Employment Generation Programme ( PMEGP ) and Credit Support Schemes has been increased more than 3 times .
The Finance Minister informed the members that the Swachh Bharat Mission ( Gramin ) has made tremendous progress in promoting safe sanitation and ending open defecation . Sanitation coverage in rural India has gone up from 42 percent in October 2014 to about 60 percent and such villages are now being given priority for
• Sowing farmers should feel secure against natural calamities .
• Sum of Rs 10 lakh crore is allocated as credit to farmers , with 60 days interest waiver .
• NABARD fund will be increased to Rs 40,000 crore .
• Government will set up mini labs in Krishi Vigyan Kendras for soil testing .
• A dedicated micro irrigation fund will be set up for NABARD with Rs 5,000 crore initial corpus .
• Irrigation corpus increased from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 40,000 crore .
• Dairy processing infrastructure fund wlll be initially created with a corpus of Rs . 2000 crore .
• Issuance of soil cards has gained momentum .
• A model law on contract farming will be prepared and shared with the states .
piped water supply . He said , for imparting new skills to the people in the rural areas , mason training will be provided to 5 lakh persons by 2022 , with an immediate target of training at
18 BioVoiceNews | February 2017