Experts taking part in pre-Budget consultations convened by the State Finance Minister has expressed concern over the state of the agricultural economy.

The Finance Minister, Mr K. M. Mani, told newspersons after the consultations here on Tuesday that the State had logged an abysmal 0.64 per cent growth in the sector during the last year.

This compared with the 6.12 per cent growth in the secondary sector and 11.57 per cent in the tertiary sector, Mr Mani said.

Earlier in the day, Mr Pulapre Balakrishnan, Director, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), an autonomous think-tank, said that the crying need for public investment in the agricultural sector needed to be attended to on a war-footing.

According to him, the local self-government bodies have a leading role to play in promoting investments in the sector.

But it was regrettable that they tend to project an image that they exist merely for the purpose of receiving funds in the thousands of crores that the Government transfers from the Budget every year.

ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE

They need to be mandated with what Mr Balakrishnan described as ‘serious responsibilities' in the agricultural sector. The previous Government had in fact initiated some steps in this direction.

He was also of the view that the Department of Commercial Taxes must improve on its economic intelligence and find new ways of new resources from among a legion of new opportunities in the trade and services sector.

Mr Balakrishnan did not see why agricultural income tax should not be imposed on certain sub-sectors, especially plantation sector.

Similarly, high-spending sectors such as construction must be subjected to varying tax given that they are promoting consumptive assets in domestic housing in an environment where land resources are spread thin and are priced inordinately high.

vinson@thehindu.co.in

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