Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented Budget on Thursday. This is Arun Jaitley's 5th Budget being presented in the middle of a busy election year as eight states go to polls. This is just a year ahead of the 17th general election. At the outset of Budget speech Jaitley announced new plans for the agriculture sector. The Minimum Support Price of all crops shall be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the production cost. Removal of crop residue to be subsidized in order to tackle the problem of pollution due to burning of crop residue. Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of Rs 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets.
