Eye on ‘ 19, PM reaches out to farmers

Agri budget doubled to help double farm income by 2022: Modi

With Lok Sabha elections just nine months away, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday showcased his government’s “unprecedented” work in agriculture sector, including doubling of the budget to ` 2.12 lakh crore.

Mr Modi also reiterated that his government is working to double farm income by 2022.

He spoke to farmers from over 600 districts via video- conferencing, highlighting 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,” Mr Modi informed.

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.

The Prime Minister said in the Budget for 2018- 19 fiscal, the government announced that the minimum support price ( MSP) for all crops will be fixed at least 1.5 times the cost of production. He also listed out all the costs that will be included while fixing the MSP.

“The budget allocation for the agriculture sector in 5 years of the previous government was ` 1.21 lakh crore. This has been increased to ` 2.12 lakh crore during 2014- 19, which is almost double. This clearly reflects our commitment to farmers welfare,” he said.