Govt announces 16-point action plan to double farmers' income

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech in Parliament on Saturday proposed 16 action points to revive the struggling agriculture sector by doubling farmers' income.

With the aim of doubling farmers' income by 2022, Sitharaman proposed to expand PM-KUSUM to 20 lakh farmers for setting up stand-alone solar pumps and help another 15 lakh farmers solarise their grid-connected pump sets.

"She further proposed to operationalize scheme to enable farmers to set up solar power generation capacity on their fallow/barren lands and to sell it to grid. Resource efficiency is the first step in doubling farmer's income and keeping this in mind Smt. Sitharaman further stressed to encourage balanced use of all kinds of fertilizers and Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF). She further proposed integration of negotiable warehousing receipts (e-NWR) and National Agricultural Market (e-NAM)," a release said.

Sitharaman said that integrated farming systems for rainfed areas shall be expanded.

"Multi-tier cropping, bee keeping, solar pumps, solar energy production in non cropping season will be added. The portal on 'Jaivik kheti' - online national orgc products market will also be strengthened," she said.

To address concerns related to water stress in various parts of the country, the Finance Minister said: "Our government is proposing comprehensive measures for one hundred water stressed districts".

With an aim to promote storage infrastructure and reduce wastage of food grains, Sitharaman proposed creation of warehouses through viability gap funding on a PPP mode at block level.

"She also proposed warehouse building by Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) on their land too. As a backward linkage, Smt. Sitharaman proposed village storage scheme to be run by Self Help Groups (SHG). "Women, SHG's shall regain their position as Dhaanya Lakshmi," the release said.

Sitharaman said that Indian Railways will set up Kisan Rail-through PPP arrangements to build a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables, inclusive of milk and meat.

"There shall be refrigerated coaches in express and freight trains as well. To help improve value realization especially in North-East and tribal districts Krishi Udaan will be launched by the Ministry of Civil Aviation" added the Finance Minister.

Recognizing the contribution of mal husbandry sector in farmer's income, Sitharaman aimed to eliminate Foot and Mouth disease, brucellosis in cattles and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in sheep and goat by 2025 and to increase coverage of artificial insemination from 30 per cent to 70 per cent.

"We shall facilitate doubling of milk processing capacity from 53.5 million MT to 108 million MT by 2025," she said.

She set agriculture credit target of Rs 15 lakh crore for 2020-21 and stated that all eligible beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) will be covered under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme.

Speaking on horticulture, Sitharaman said: "For better marketing and export, we propose supporting states which, adopting a cluster basis will focus on one product one district."

Sitharaman proposed to put in place a framework for development, management and conservation of marine fishery resources and promotion of algae, sea weed and cage culture that will assist in raising fish production to 200 lakh tonnes by 2022-23.

"Our government will involve youth in fishery extension through 3477 sagar mitras and 500 fish farmer producer orgzations. We hope to raise fishery export to Rs 1 lakh crore by 2024-25," she said.

Sitharaman also proposed to encourage those states governments who undertake implementation of Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act, 2016; Model Agricultural Produce and livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2017 and Model Agricultural produce and Livestock Contract Farming and services (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2018.

( With inputs from ANI )