Agriculture Infrastructure Fund

The Prime Minister has launched the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (Agri Infra Fund) in order to improve the farm gate prices and overall income of the farmers. The fund of Rs 1 trillion will be utilized for giving a fillip to the post-harvest management and also marketing of agricultural produce of the farmers.

What are the salient features of the Fund?

• It will provide better storage facilities and warehousing facilities to the farmers. This push will be helpful in creating new jobs in rural India.
• Banks and financial institutions under this scheme will provide Rs 1 trillion in loans to the cooperative societies, farmer producer companies, self-help groups, entrepreneurs and startups in this sector.
• All the loans to the beneficiaries up to Rs 2 crore will be disbursed with an interest subsidy of 3%. All these loans will be disbursed within the next four years with Rs 10000 crore to be sanctioned in 2020-21 and Rs 30000 crore to be sanctioned in the next three years.

Inauguration of the Scheme

Rs 1128 crores of new loans have been disbursed to over 2200 cooperative societies in the country as part of the inaugural meet of this scheme.

What is the objective?

The main objective of the scheme is to provide medium-to-long term debt financing for post-harvest infra and community assets for marketing farm produce. The broader idea is to boost the income potential of the farmers by the year 2022.

Month: Current Affairs - August, 2020