The New Nation - Internet Edition

NEIGHBOURING country, India, offers an example of how the government can come to the rescue of the predominantly rural and agriculture-oriented population of a country with timely policies. The government of India submitted recently its national budget for the next fiscal year in Parliament. A very conspicuous aspect of it is the measures proposed in it to help the farmers who are, still, the greatest segment of the population. The government has proposed to write off the accumulated debts of the farmers amounting to some 60,000 crore Rupees.

The non performing loans of the farmers in different banks, cooperative bodies and other societies have been declared void. The government will now pay off to these bodies on behalf of the farmers. This step has been taken with the objective of creating incentives for farmers so that they can become unencumbered and engage in farming with more enthusiasm. The same will be also helpful for the country to build food security when setbacks in agricultural production in India have been noted after many years.

The preparation of the Bangladesh budget for the next fiscal year is progressing. Now is the time to consider suggestions to incorporate measures that would be helpful for the farmers after they have faced a bad time.

Agricultural production faced setback in Bangladesh during the current fiscal year. Recovering from the setbacks and optimising production in the farming sectors call for incentives laden policies on the part of the government. The government can consider writing off farmers' debts on a large scale. In addition, it should increase subsidies under different heads for agriculture and devise effective means to deliver the benefits of such subsidisation to the farmers. This is seen to be the bigger challenge. Such measures would help agriculture to make a turnaround benefitting the entire economy.