Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar said that the Central Government has adopted various developmental programmes, schemes, reforms and policies that focus on higher incomes for the farmers.
He said all these policies and programs are being supported by higher budgetary allocations, non-budgetary financial resources such as creating Corpus Funds like Micro Irrigation Fund etc. There have been several reforms to unleash the potential, e.g. Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs along with necessary financial support under the Atma Nirbhar Package (Agriculture). Under Atma Nirbhar Bharat special attention is being paid for the creation of infrastructure for which “Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) has been created with a size of Rs. 100,000 crore.
Other special initiatives include Supplementary Income transfers under PM-KISAN; Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY); Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY); Increase in Minimum Support Price (MSPs) for all Kharif and Rabi Crops ensuring a minimum of 50% of profit margin on the cost of production, Bee-Keeping; Rashtriya Gokul Mission; Blue Revolution; Interest Subvention Scheme; Kisan Credit Card (KCC) that now offers production loan to even dairy & fishery farmers besides agricultural crops etc.
For environmental sustainability, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) has been launched in the year 2014-15 which aims to evolve and implement strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to the changing climate. The adoption of Drone technologies in agriculture has the potential to revolutionize Indian agriculture. In order to make Drone technology affordable to the farmers and other stakeholders of this sector, financial assistance at 100 % cost of drone together with the contingent expenditure is extended to ICAR/SAU/ State governments/ State government Institutions under Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM).
Through Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, govt. provides Rs. 6000 per year in 3 equal instalments to the farmers. A total of Rs. 1.8 lakh crores have been released so far to more than 11.7 crore farmer families.
Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) was started in 2015-16 to promote organic farming in the country. Two-year achievement under PKVY scheme-19043 clusters have been formed and an area of 3.81 lakh ha has been covered benefitting 9.52 lakh farmers. In addition, under Namami Gange Programme 123620 ha area covered and under natural farming 4.09 lakh ha area covered.
Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was launched in 2016 to solve the problems of high premium rates for farmers and reduction in sum insured due to capping. In past 5 Years of implementation – 29.29 crore farmers have enrolled and over 8.99 crore (Provisional) farmers have received claims of over Rs. 103903 crore.
Per Drop More Crop component of Pradhanmantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY_PDMC) aims to increase water use efficiency at the farm level through Micro Irrigation technologies, i.e., drip and sprinkler irrigation systems. An amount of Rs. 5262.20 crore has been provided to states as central assistance under PMKSY-PDMC during 2019-20 and 2020-21. For the year 2021-22, an amount of Rs. 4000.00 crore (B.E.) has been allocated for implementation of the scheme and an amount of Rs. 779.18 crore released to States so far.