The Agriculture Ministry reported that the government has recently increased the ministry’s budget. Still, the church has not yet utilized it because over Rs 1 lakh crore has been relinquished in the last five years.

The Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare (DA&FW) surrendered Rs 21,005.13 crore of its annual allocation of Rs 1.24 lakh crore during the last financial year (April 2022-March 2023), according to the report titled “Accounts at a Glance for the Year 2022-2023.” This is nearly four times the amount the department turned in for the 2021–2022 fiscal year, totalling Rs 5,152.6 crore out of its allotted Rs 1.23 lakh crore.

In 2020–21, Rs 23,824.53 crore; in 2019–20, Rs 34,517.7 crore; and in 2018–19, Rs 21,043.75 crore were turned over to the department.

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A total of Rs 9 lakh has been turned over by the ministry’s Department of Agricultural Research and Education, which was allotted Rs 8,658.91 crore in 2022–2023; Rs 1.81 crore in 2021–2022; Rs 600 crore in 2020–21; Rs 232.62 crore in 2019–20; and Rs 7.9 crore in 2018–2019.

With the Centre launching the Kisan Samman Nidhi during the financial year 2018-19, the combined budget of the two departments under the Agriculture Ministry increased from Rs 54,000 crore (or 2.3% of the Centre’s total budget of Rs 24.42 lakh crore) in 2018-19 to Rs 1.32 lakh crore (or 3.5% of the total Rs 39.44 lakh crore during 2022-23.

Over the past five years, the annual allocation to the scheme has fluctuated between Rs 20,000 crore and Rs 75,000 crore. However, the government marginally reduced the ministry’s total allocation to 1.25 lakh crore during the current financial year 2023-24 from Rs 1.32 lakh crore in 2022-23, perhaps due to the non-utilization of funds.