Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces Rs 1 lakh crore investment in the farm sector, especially in cold storages, warehousing and markets for farmers.
Firstly the scheme was announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman as part of a Rs 20 lakh crore economic and relief package in the wake of the coronavirus disease pandemic.
According to the guidelines, all loans up to Rs 2 crore will be spend with a 3% interest subsidy. The loans will be also disbursed in the next four years with a sanction of Rs 10,000 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 30,000 crore in the next three years.
“The agriculture infrastructure fund will provide better warehousing and cold storage facilities for farmers and is a step towards doubling of farm income,” Modi said. The fund will also create employment as investments will goes into food processing and post-harvest facilities in rural India.
In the video-conferencing, Modi interacted with farmers from Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat.
“The Prime Minister had an engaging discussion with the representatives of these societies to understand their current operations and how they plan to utilise the loan. The societies informed the Prime Minister about their plans to build godowns, set up grading and sorting units which will help member-farmers secure a higher price for their produce,” an official statement said.
Modi said, “No middlemen or commission, it went straight to farmers. I am satisfied because the objective of the scheme is being fulfilled.”
On December 1, 2018, PM-KISAN scheme was launched, has already provided a direct cash benefit of over Rs. 75,000 crore to more than 99 million farmer families. As per the scheme, income support of Rs 6,000 per year is provided to farmer families across the country in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 every four months.
“Indian agriculture has always depended more on subsidies than investments. The new fund will help correct that. It is important that the fund is managed in a way that farmers are able to achieve scale and connect with markets efficiently,” said Ananth Kumar of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
