The Narendra Modi government has completed one year of its second term in office. It has always accorded high priority to the agriculture sector and welfare of farmers. During the last one year, various important schemes were launched with an aim to boost agriculture sector and to enhance farmers’ income. In the first Union Cabinet meeting of its second term, the Modi government decided to extend the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) Scheme to cover all farmer families in the country irrespective of the size of their landholdings from 1st of June last year excluding affluent categories.
The scheme initially provided income support to all Small and Marginal Farmers’ families across the country, holding cultivable land upto 2 hectares. An amount of six thousand rupees is provided per year in three equal installments directly into the bank account of farmers under the scheme.
Under the PM- KISAN scheme last year, during the lockdown period from 24th of March, 9.67 crore farmers have been benefited and an amount of over 19 thousand 350 crore rupees has been released so far. The government also launched Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maan Dhan Yojana on 12th September last year to ensure payment of minimum pension of three thousand rupees per month to the eligible small and marginal farmers on attaining the age of 60 year.
During the period, 415 new Mandis have been integrated with National Agriculture Market e- NAM platform . With this e-NAM platform now has a total number of 1000 mandis across 18 States and 3 Union Territories. Besides, the Kisan Rath Mobile App was also launched to facilitates Farmers and Traders in identifying right mode of transportation for movement of farm produce. Under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, the government has announced one lakh crore rupees Agri Infrastructure Fund for farm-gate infrastructure for farmers.
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