Govt spending Rs 6.5 lakh crore annually on agriculture, farmers’ welfare: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said his government was spending Rs 6.5 lakh crore annually for the agriculture sector and farmers’ welfare, and called upon cooperatives to help in making the country self-reliant in cooking oils.

Speaking at an event on the occasion of International Day of Cooperatives, the prime minister also highlighted the work done by his government, like PM Kisan scheme, MSP operations, and fertilizer subsidy since coming to power in 2014. In the last 9 years, Modi said more than Rs 15 lakh crore have been given to farmers by procuring their produce on the MSP. The government, he said spent Rs 10 lakh crore towards fertilizer subsidy last year. In other words, the government is spending around Rs 6.5 lakh crore per year on agriculture and farmers, the prime minister said.

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“This means that every year the government is providing an average of Rs 50,000 to every farmer in some form or the other. “That is, in the BJP government, farmers are guaranteed to get Rs 50,000 every year in different ways. This is Modi’s guarantee,” he said, and added that he was only stating what his government has done and not just talking about “promises”. In the last 4 years, the prime minister said Rs 2.5 lakh crore have been sent directly to bank accounts of farmers under PM KISAN scheme. “You can guess how big this amount is from the fact that the total agricultural budget for the five years before 2014 was less than Rs 90,000 crore,” Modi said.

He was speaking at the 17th Indian Cooperative Congress. During the two-day event, the stakeholders will discuss various trends in cooperative movement, showcase best practices being adopted, deliberate challenges being faced and chalk out future policy action for growth of India’s cooperative movement.