There are high expectations from the Budget for the farm sector. There could be steps and funds allocated for seamless implementation perhaps of these farm laws.

Siraj Chaudhry, MD & CEO, National Collateral Management Services (NCML) spoke to CNBC-TV18 about what is the sector really looking forward to from this Budget 2021. "One thing which I firmly believe that we have an economy which is in trouble at this point of time particularly ravaged by the COVID-19 event as well as now the whole recovery process. From the agriculture sector, one element that I could suggest is that the issue price for grain that is being issued under the National Food Security Act needs to be increased.”

He added, "There is a clause for that in the statute and I think that is something that needs to be taken up under current circumstances both from a perspective of increasing government recoveries or earnings and also from bringing some relief to the farmers."

On GST, Chaudhry said, "The GST is exempt for warehousing, but there is no exemption for all the other accompanying services like fumigation, testing, everything that goes into managing a warehouse. So, therefore, there is no input credit, so while the government’s intent is freeing up warehousing from GST was to reduce the cost of warehousing the reality is that it doesn’t solve the problem.”

On farm protest, Chaudhry said, “The farm bills have been drawing a lot of attention for the right reasons and I feel that three bills, unfortunately, all of them have clubbed together, but the reality I feel is that two of them that is Essential Commodities Act and the Farm Contract Law are not really something that should have come under so much scanner and the protest because they are not really if gone into the details affecting the farmers or putting their interest at risk.”

Watch this video for more.

(Edited by : Priyanka Rathi)

First Published:Jan 20, 2021 3:59 PM IST