Finance Ministry Declares Increasing institutional credit for agriculture Industry into Rs.11 Lakh crore for 2018-19 from Rs.10 Lakh Crore at 2017-18
Rs. 500 Crore ‘Performance greens’ Declared to address Cost volatility of perishable commodities Such as Tomato, tomato and Tomato and benefit both Manufacturers and Customers
Rs.200 Crore allocated to Encourage Coordinated Farming of highly Technical medicinal and aromatic plants and Related Business
22,000 rural Haats to be Produced and Updated into Gramin agricultural markets (G) for farmers to Immediately sell to Customers and bulk Buyers
Rs.2000 Crore fund to be installed for upgrading and developing agricultural marketing infrastructure at the 22000 g and 585 APMCS
Doubling allocation for food processing industry into Rs.1400 Crore, authorities to promote institution of technical agro-processing financial institutions
Center of Kisan credit cards expanded to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers to assist them meet their working capital requirements; Rs.10,000 Crore funds declared cumulatively for infrastructure growth in the two industries
Rs.1290 Crore re-structured nationwide bamboo assignment declared to market bamboo industry in a holistic fashion
Special strategy to be used to encourage haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and also the Delhi to deal with air pollution and also to subsidize machines required for in-situ direction of harvest residue
New Delhi, February 10, 2018: “Our focus is on creating higher incomes for farmers. We believe agriculture as a venture and wish to help farmers create out of precisely the exact same land parcel at lesser price and concurrently realize higher prices for their manufacture”, the Minister added while announcing a slew of new initiatives to the farm industry at Budget 2018-19.
Shri Jaitley was happy to declare that the Government has made a decision to maintain Minimum Support Price (MSP) for many hitherto unannounced plants of Kharif at least in one and half days of the production price.
Accepting Government’s vision beforehand, the Finance Minister, at Budget 2018-19, declared the launch of ‘Operation Greens’ to deal with cost volatility of perishable commodities such as potatoes, onions and berries, in a price of Rs. 500 crore. ‘Operation Greens’, about the traces of ‘Operation Flood’, will encourage Farmer Producers Organizations (FPOs), agri-logistics, processing centers and skilled management in the industry. Additionally, Shri Jaitley declared 100 percent deduction in respect of gains to Farmer Producer Businesses (FPCs), having turnover to Rs. 100 crore, for a period of five years from FY 2018-19, so as to boost professionalism in place harvest value addition in agriculture.
Further, Shri Jaitley advised the Government has encouraged organic farming in a big way. Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) are also invited to take up organic farming in clusters beneath National Rural Livelihood Programme. Additionally, a amount of Rs.200 crore have been allocated to encourage coordinated farming of highly specialized medicinal and aromatic plants and help cottage and small industries that produce scents, essential oils and other related goods, the Minister added.
In such GrAMs, physical infrastructure will be bolstered with MGNREGA along with other Authorities Schemes and could be connected to e-NAM and exempted from regulations of APMCs. This would offer farmers center to create immediate sale to customers and bulk buyers, the Minister added.
Shri Jaitley said that from the last Budget, the Government had declared strengthening of e-NAM and also to expand coverage of e-NAM into 585 APMCs. Out of this, 470 APMCs are linked to e-NAM community and remainder is going to be linked by March, 2018.
Announcing doubling of allocation for Ministry of Food Processing from Rs.715 crore at RE 2017-18 into Rs.1400 crore at BE 2018-19, Shri Jaitley said that the Prime Minister Krishi Sampada Yojana is the flagship programme for fostering investment in food processing and the industry is increasing at a normal rate of 8 percent per annum. With the higher allocation for the industry, the Government will encourage establishment of technical agro-processing financial institutions within this industry and also to put up state-of-the-art testing centers in each of the forty two Mega Food Parks, the Minister added.
Announcing a significant measure to assist small and marginal farmers in fisheries and animal husbandry industry to satisfy their working capital requirements, the Finance Minister extended the centre of Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) into the industry. This could benefit from harvest loan and interest subvention, so much available to agriculture industry only under KCC, for instance of cows, buffalo, goat, sheep poultry and fisheries. Total Corpus of both of these new Funds will be Rs.10,000 crore.
Calling Bamboo as ‘Green Gold’, Shri Jaitley declared the initiation of the Rs.1290-crore Re-structured National Bamboo Mission, that’s predicated on a cluster based strategy to tackle the comprehensive bamboo value series and encourage bamboo industry in a holistic way. Having a focus on linking bamboo growers together with customers; production of centers for collection, aggregation, processing, advertising, MSMEs, skill building and new building, this statement would lead in creating extra income for farmers, job opportunities for skilled and unskilled youth particularly in rural locations.
As a step to tackle the challenge of air pollution from the Delhi-NCR area, Shri Jaitley said that a particular Scheme will be used to encourage the attempts of the authorities of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and also the NCT of Delhi to handle air pollution and also to subsidize machines required for in-situ management of harvest residue.
