Punjab's agri budget: jargon over substance.

Over the years, Punjab has perfected one art: modernise and complicate jargon to narrate deteriorating realities that keep worsening because there is no political will and planning to arrest the process.

Its agriculture budget every year is an example of this fine artisanship. This year is no exception. The hard fact is that Punjab has slashed its budget for agriculture and related sectors, including food, irrigation and livestock, by a whopping drop of 26.85 per cent - from Rs64.80 billion to Rs47.40bn.

For agriculture alone, the budgetary allocation has come down from Rs31bn last year to Rs19.53bn this year - a staggering cut of 38.71pc. It happened against the department's wishes, which was aiming at, and hoping for an allocation of Rs40bn - with a development component of Rs20bn.

Now, the jargon: 'We are introducing Punjab Resilient and Inclusive Agriculture Transformation (PRIAT) plan to technologically modernise the sector and align it with the latest technological trends in the world,' as put by the minister for finance during his budget speech. What it actually means is left to the imagination of the reader.

Fancy words cannot cover up the gaps in financing essentials such as fertiliser and fuel whose prices have gone through the roof

'Punjab is also starting eight new programmes to develop the seeds of pulses, peanuts, blackberry and other high-value crops,' the minister continued. The province will also continue subsiding drip and sprinkle irrigation systems and carry out the zoning of crops according to soil potential. For meeting all these sectoral structural needs, the province has spared a paltry sum of Rs14.77bn - the development component earmarked for the year.

Now, the reality check: the PRIAT plan is a lender-driven programme that has been facing issues because of failure to meet loan conditionalities like restricting the official wheat procurement target. Financing for revamping individual crops like wheat, sugarcane and rice was stopped by this government for the last few months because of the budgetary squeeze.

Punjab's penchant for short-term donor-driven programmes, like PRIAT, is phenomenal as they give a progressive look to the effort and the executioner. For this reason, Punjab has literally had hundreds of such lender-sponsored plans during the last few decades. Enhancing Vegetable Production, Management of Fruit Fly with Special Reference to Non-Conventional Methods, Promotion of Pulses Cultivation...