New Delhi: Farm markets need to be liberalised and the government is proposing to hand-hold farmers, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday as she reiterated the government’s promise to double farmers’ income by 2022.
Presenting the Budget for 2020-21, Sitharaman proposed a 16-point action plan to boost agriculture and farmers' welfare. Sitharaman said agricultural services need copious investments, and added that the government has insured 6.11 crore farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna.
The Union Budget, she said, is broadly divided into three major themes - aspirational India, economic development and building a caring society. "Everything that we do, speak through budget, everything that the government does is for the country," she said.
These are the 16-points presented by the finance minister.
- Total budget allocation of Rs 2.83 lakh crore for agriculture and 1.23 lakh crore for rural development and Panchyati Raj.
- Comprehensive measures for 100 water stressed districts.
- PM Kusum scheme removes dependence on kerosene and encourages use of solar power
- Kisan Rail to be set up by Indian Railways under PPP model to transport perishable goods.
- Encourage states to take up model agricultural laws
- Government will encourage balanced use of fertilisers. This is an important step because currently use of chemical fertilizers is incentivized.
- NABARD will take up an exercise of mapping and geo tagging agricultural warehouses, cold storage and other inventory storages.
- A village storage scheme is proposed to be managed by SHEs. This will help farmers store more and reduce logistics costs. Women in the village will be responsible for managing this seamless storage mechanism.
- Krishi UDAAN scheme will be launched by Aviation Ministry.
- Horticulture sector with its current produce exceeds the production of food grains. We will now take it to, One Product One District.
- Financing of negotiable warehousing receipts will be integrated with other e-services.
- Agricultural credit availability for 2021 has been set at 15 lakh crore.
- Government aims to eliminate the foot and mouth disease in sheep and goat by 2025
- Doubling of milk production of 53.5 million metric tonne of milk to 103 metric million tonne by 2025.
- Government will involve youth in fishery sector. We hope the rural youth will work as Sagar Mitras and also form Fish Farmer Organisation
- Under Antodyaya scheme, SHEs will be further taken forward and made stronger.
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