Prime minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday interacted with farmers via the Narendra Modi App (NaMo App) and said that the Central government is working to ensure the doubling of farmers’ income by 2022. He went on to express his optimism about using a digital platform to address farmers from over 600 districts in India. In this event, Modi interacted with farmers from Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, West Bengal and Maharashtra among other parts of the country and talked about the achievements and challenges of farming. However, the farmers from Kota could not be connected in due to technical issues.
Reaching out to farmers, Modi on Wednesday showcased his government’s “unprecedented” work in the agriculture sector, including doubling of the budget to Rs 2.12 lakh crore. Continuing his outreach programme of direct interaction with beneficiaries of his pet schemes, Modi highlighted the government interventions — right from seeds to market that is aimed at addressing farm distress.
The government, through an extensive and balanced policy, is aiming to provide inputs like quality seeds, fertilisers, water and electricity as well as markets for increasing farmers’ income, he said.
“We have decided to double farmers income by 2022... When I talked about doubling of farmers’ income, there were many people who made fun that this is not possible and difficult. They created an atmosphere of doom. But we decided as I had full faith in farmers,” Modi said.
To achieve this target, he said the four cornerstones of the government policy are cutting input cost, fair price for the crop, preventing post-harvest losses and creating alternate sources of income.
Modi said in the Budget for 2018-19, the government announced that the minimum support price for all crops will be fixed at least 1.5 times the cost of production. “The budget allocation for this year’s agriculture sector has been increased to Rs 2.12 lakh crore. This clearly reflects our commitment to farmers welfare,” Modi said.
—with PTI inputs
Power To Farmers
Agriculture sector’s budget doubled to Rs 2.12 lakh crore; aims to provide inputs like quality seeds, fertilizers, water and power
4 cornerstones of policy are cutting input cost, fair price for crop, preventing post-harvest losses; creating alternate sources of income
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