 "MK Stalin")
On August 14, Tamil Nadu will will become the third state -- after Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh -- to have a separate agricultural budget. While experts believe that this is nothing more than a political move, data available from Andhra Pradesh indicates that such a move might actually boost the sector.
The tradition of having an exclusive budget for agriculture was started by Karnataka in 2011-12 in order to give a focused approach to the sector. Andhra Pradesh followed in 2013-14, terming it as a policy paper on agriculture. Though states like Telangana, Rajasthan and Bihar too had similar plans, they did not take off due to various legal and technical reasons.
Telangana had backed out of a plan of
