Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY)

This scheme, launched in 2007-08 with an outlay of Rs 25,000 crore for the 11th Plan, aims at incentivizing States to enhance public investment to achieve 4 per cent growth rate in agriculture and allied sectors during the Plan period and to select, plan, approve and execute growth generating interventions and build agri-infrastructure as per their priorities and agro-climatic requirements.

RKVY has succeeded in incentivizing States to allocate more funds to agriculture and allied sectors. Allocation to agriculture and allied sectors was Rs 8770.16 crore (4.88% of total State Plan Expenditure) in 2006-07. This has gone up to Rs 22158.46 crore (6.04% of aggregate State Plan Expenditure) in 2010-11 (RE).

States have taken up over 5290 projects in last five years across all segments of agriculture and allied sectors. RKVY format has also enabled taking up national priorities as sub-schemes, while keeping States’ flexibility of project selection and implementation intact. In all, nine special Programmes/schemes with focused objectives are being implemented as sub-schemes of RKVY in the year 2011-12.

Basic Features

The RKVY aimed at achieving 4 per cent annual growth in the agriculture sector during the XI Plan period, by ensuring a holistic development of Agriculture and allied sectors.

The main objectives of the scheme are:

• To incentivise the states so as to increase public investment in Agriculture and allied sectors
• To provide flexibility and autonomy to states in the process of planning and executing Agriculture and allied sector schemes
• To ensure the preparation of agriculture plans for the districts and the states based on agro-climatic conditions, availability of technology and natural resources
• To ensure that the local needs/crops/priorities are better reflected in the agricultural plans of the states
• To achieve the goal of reducing the yield gaps in important crops, through focussed interventions
• To maximize returns to the farmers in Agriculture and allied sectors
• To bring about quantifiable changes in the production and productivity of various components of Agriculture and allied sectors by addressing them in a holistic manner

Achievements

One objective of RKVY during the Eleventh Five Year Plan was incentivising States to increase expenditure on agriculture and allied sectors. State plan expenditures (excluding RKVY receipts) as percentage of GDP in agricultural and allied increased from 1.0 per cent in the Tenth Plan to 1.4 per cent in the Eleventh Plan. State plan expenditures on agriculture and allied sectors (excluding RKVY) have also increased as percentage total plan spending by States, from about 5 per cent during the Tenth Plan to over 6 per cent during the Eleventh Plan. RKVY was therefore successful in motivating States to pay greater attention to agriculture, besides providing increased Central assistance for the sector.

RKVY as assistance was particularly useful for the funds-starved animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries sectors. Projects amounting to over Rs 5000 crore were sanctioned under RKVY for these sectors during the Eleventh Plan, about 20 per cent of the total sanctioned RKVY projects, and more than spending on DAHDF’s schemes. This has provided a substantial push to these sectors which account for a significant contribution to the agricultural GDP.