Building Post Covid Society

Context:  Maximise and strengthen agricultural growth impulse for compensating the deceleration in the economy.

Factors Undermining Income Potential of Agriculture

• Lack of priority to infrastructure: Marketing infrastructure in census towns is in shackles.
• Most agricultural trade takes place outside Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMC), where infrastructure facilities are abysmally low.
• Farmers lack access to water resources/infrastructure.
• This undermines the income potential of agriculture and also neutralise the effects of the credit scheme being announced by the government.
• Private warehouses are starved of funds. 
• Procurement prices are largely irrelevant. 
• Lockdown acts as the hurdle to agricultural trade by restricting mobility.

Way Forward

• Strengthen the first stage agro-processing infrastructure (supply chains) and the functioning of markets.

• Implement “up to-then agricultural policies” in the context of the lockdown.
• Allow trucks and railways for agriculture transport under special conditions. 
• Moratorium on new schemes till the ones in operation show progress. 
• Linking Urban Development to the large villages, medium and small towns: through the development of socio-economic infrastructure.
• Do not only concentrate on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in large cities. 
• Address the issues with PPPs that do not have much comfort in terms of paying capacity in towns. – CRISIL.

Conclusion:  Policymaking needs to take the lead in addressing rural-urban disparities.