NEW DELHI: A sharp increase in the prices of pulses during Bihar polls was said to be a game-changer. On Monday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that the Price Stabilisation Fund will get an enhanced corpus of Rs 900 crore to support market interventions on pulses.An appeal of a farmer-cum-entrepreneur from Chandigarh in this regard may well have been listened to. The government claims that 10 such concrete suggestions from citizens on the Prime Minister’s pet MyGov platform have been “reflected” in the Budget this time.“Over 6,600 people wrote in our portal after we asked for citizens’ suggestions for the Union Budget … an abstract of the most innovative and relevant suggestions was duly submitted to the finance ministry three weeks before the Budget. We have now short-listed 10 suggestions which have been reflected in the Budget document,” MyGov chief executive Gaurav Dwivedi told ET.The citizen suggestions included introduction of a 0.5% agricultural cess, direct benefit transfer for fertilizers, introduction of a Gram Swarajaya Scheme and a separate irrigation fund.The suggestion for a stronger Price Stabilisation Fund came from Chandigarh-based Rajkaran Singh Bhatti, who was among a group of prolific MyGov contributors selected for an audience with the Prime Minister in July. He suggested a permanent fund for pulses – Jaitley announced a corpus of Rs 900 crore for the fund this year. It was Rs 500 crore last time.“Government should not act in reactionary mode when prices of pulses increase and by when damage is already done,” Bhatti, an MBA in finance, told ET. He also praised the MyGov platform for “giving a voice” to citizens in policy-making. Bhatti said he had also suggested the voluntary disclosure income scheme.A senior government official cautioned that it may not be correct to say that certain proposals had made it to the Budget purely on a citizens’ suggestion. “Many major proposals, like DBT for fertilizer subsidy and a special agricultural cess, could have been in the works for some time with citizen suggestions about them acting as a supplement,” the official said.The suggestion on DBT for fertiliser subsidy came from Bengaluru-resident Mukesh Bhaiji, while that for a separate irrigation fund to free agriculture from monsoon dependency was made by Thiruvananthapuram resident Sunil Raj, as per the MyGov platform.