GUWAHATI: During the Interim budget today, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that under the Pradhan Mantri Kissan Samman Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, 11.8 crore farmers received direct financial assistance, including marginal and small farmers, while 4 crore farmers received Crop insurance.
The Union Finance Minister called the farmers as ‘Annadata’ and said that the minimum support prices for their produce are increased periodically as needed and the Government also provides free ration to 80 crore people in order to eliminate hunger and worries about food.
Additionally, the interim budget 2024-25 has promised efforts in stepping up value addition in agricultural sector and boosting the income of farmers, while promoting private and public investment in post-harvest activities including aggregation, modern storage, efficient supply chains, primary and secondary processing and marketing and branding in a bid to ensure faster growth of the agriculture and food processing sector in India.
“The sector is poised for inclusive, balanced, higher growth and productivity. These are facilitated from farmer-centric policies, income support, coverage of risks through price and insurance support, promotion of technologies and innovations through start-ups.”, the Finance Minister stated in her speech.
She further said that the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Yojana has assisted 2.4 lakh SHGs and 60,000 individuals with credit linkages and along with other schemes aiming to reduce post-harvest losses and improving productivity and incomes.
“Electronic National Agriculture Market has integrated 1361 mandis, and is providing services to 1.8 crore farmers with trading volume of 3 lakh crore”, Finance Minister Sitharaman said in her Budget speech today.
Furthermore, the Atmanirbhar Oil Seeds Abhiyaan was also announced as the Union Finance Minister said, “Building on the initiative announced in 2022, a strategy will be formulated to achieve ‘atmanirbharta’ for oil seeds such as mustard, groundnut, sesame, soybean, and sunflower. This will cover research for high-yielding varieties, widespread adoption of modern farming techniques, market linkages, procurement, value addition, and crop insurance.”
Under the Atmanirbhar Oil Seeds Abhiyaan, the Centre will cover research for high-yielding varieties of crop, along with promoting the widespread adoption of modern farming techniques, market linkages, procurement, value addition, and crop insurance.
