With Rs 1 lakh crore fund, govt to ‘bring mandi to farmers’ under PM-Kisan Scheme
into motion decisions aimed at helping farmers get a better price for their produce at farm gates, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday launched a Rs 1 lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund to support community farming assets across the country and said this would enhance India’s ability to compete globally in the agri sector.
The farm infrastructure will enable farmers to get higher value for their produce as they will be able to store and sell at better prices as per market conditions, reduce wastage and increase processing and value addition.Modi also released Rs 17,000 crore to nearly 8.5 crore farmers under the sixth instalment of the PM-Kisan scheme. The cash benefit was transferred directly into Aadhaar-verified bank accounts with the press of a button. With this transfer, the scheme has so far provided over Rs 90,000 crore to over 10 crore farmers since its launch in February last year.
Speaking through video conference, Modi said the country had huge opportunity to invest in post-harvest management solutions like warehousing, cold chain and food processing and to build a global presence in areas such as organic and fortified foods. He said the scheme would provide a good opportunity for start-ups in agriculture to avail benefits and scale up their operations, thereby creating an an ecosystem that would benefit farmers and create new jobs. Under this 10-year scheme, Rs 1 lakh crore will be provided by banks and financial inst as loans with interest subvention of 3% per annum and credit societies (PACS), marketing cooperative societies, farmer-producer organisations, self-help groups, joint liability groups, multi-purpose cooperative societies, agri-entrepreneurs, start-ups, and central/state agency or local body-sponsored public-private partnership projects.
