MY REFLECTIONS ON BUDGET As I was on move , could not take much time to get into the depth of budget speech. Two very major and significant announcements in this budget are : 1. implementation of Dr M S Swaminathan recommendation on MSP to Agri commodities, i.e., farmers should get minimum support price of cost plus 50% and extending it to 23 crops covering 90% of produce. Neetiayog   is given the task of arriving at modalities. One ambiguity here is about land lease amount to be considered as input or not? With the situation where about 70% farming is happening on lease lands , if land lease amount is not included as input for calculating the cost of production, it will bring in major unrest among farmers and the purpose is defeated. 2. Health care to 10 crore people with 5 lakhs coverage. It is an excellent move and deserve to name after Modi ji and let us call it “ MODICARE - MEDICARE”.  This shall be extended to all BPL families and all persons depending only on Agri incom

AN APPEAL TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS FROM TAMIL NADU We, AP people are fighting for our genuine rights like spl status, support to Amaravati,completion of polavaram, few national education institutions and all the issues promised in state reorganization bill. Our MPs submitted no confidence motion notice and pressing for discussion, so that we can make our voice heard in parliament, nation understand our genuine demands and join us in putting pressure on NDA Government. Unfortunately during last ten days, TN MPs from AIADMK are stalling the proceedings by jumping into the well and demanding discussion on Kaveri issue.   We are requesting them to cooperate with us and allow no confidence motion to come for discussion. Later we will be pleased to cooperate with TN. AP helped TN in many ways irrespective of political affiliations . Giving water to Chennai through Telugu Ganga project is one such great gesture from AP to TN. Despite injustice done to AP by Sri Chidambaram a

Venkaiah Naidu Garu despite your constitutional position as VP, still you can prevail We request you to use your position and   oratory skills in appealing to GOI to accord special status to AP as promised, rather than NDA continuing the blame game on UPA. AP people   already punished them in battle field. It is agreed that UPA did not speak about special status in reorganization bill, but then PM gave assurance in parliament and its as good as a bill. In fact none other than you and then PM designate Sri Narendra Modi went over bound and projected yourselves as real champions of AP and announced 15 year special status during series of election meetings. NDA came into power and AP people gave standing ovation and felicitated you and exhibited their love for you and trusted you as father of new AP and champion of special status. Couple of years passed, no progress on special status. NDA came out with new term called spl package. You prevailed and our CM sincerely followed

RELEVANCE OF PUBLIC SECTOR TO FARM SECTOR The role of PSUs has to shift from meeting basic needs to create free and fair market environment. NDDB under the dynamic leadership of Dr V Kurien understood the need for evaluation of milk price based on the composition and created transparent milk pricing mechanism by giving due weightage to fat and SNF. This transparent policy is the market n reason for india becoming largest milk producer of the world. Though similar interventions are possible in few other agriculture commodities, there is no serious attempts from policy makers. For example in case of sugar cane, farmers can be paid based on juice bricks/juice sucrose coupled with other recommendations of Rangarajan commuter report, rather than present system of uniform pricing irrespective of quality. This type of pricing is essential to encourage farmers in adopting good cultivation practices. Similarly other PSUs are expected to perform their role in larger interest

Will the benefits promised in   budget really reach farmers?- Drip irrigation In recent budget micro irrigation is one of the major thrust areas in agriculture and   it is one of   the important   components in "Mission- Double the farmers income by 2022" As an operational strategy , one has to think how to make drip affordable to small farmers and work with vision that by 2022 , farmers will be in a position to install and maintain drip and other micro irrigation systems without depending on Govt subsidies. To achieve this goal lot of dedication and commitment at policy level is required. The existing systems are to be captured and real sincere efforts are required to break the nexus built over generations. The major components of drip irrigation systems include PE piping, valves, backflow preventers, filters and raw material is plastics. As all of us are aware RIL is the major manufacturer of PP/PE granules in India. IOCL, HMEL, MRPL, Haldia also started prod