Giving a detailed account of various measures taken by his government to improve the plight of farmers in the country, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the government was committed to improving the income security of farmers who have been working hard to ensure the food security of all Indians.

Addressing a two-day conference on doubling farmers’ income which concluded here, he said the NDA government has been working hard to reduce the input costs, to increase productivity of farmland, to ensure fair price and better market access for the produce, and to create alternative sources of income for farmers.

He said the government has drawn up plans to computerise all 63,000 agricultural co-operative societies in the country within the next three years to smoothen credit flow to farmers. He also informed the gathering, that comprised farmers, economists, scientists and policy makers apart from ministers from his cabinet and officials from different ministries, that the latest Budget has increased credit available for agriculture to ₹11 lakh crore.

Soil health cards

The use of neem-coated urea, for instance, he said, reduced the fertiliser use and improved the efficiency of farmland. Similarly, the government has so far issued 11 crore soil health cards to farmers which not only cut down the fertiliser use by 8-10 per cent, but also increased the productivity by 5-6 per cent.

He said there was need for training youth in soil testing and giving them certification which would help them set up soil testing labs across the country. Such labs, which could be established using loans available for self-employment schemes, could be upgraded later to water testing labs too.

Irrigation and insurance

According to the Prime Minister, as many as 99 irrigation projects across the country have been stuck for 25 to 30 years, but the NDA government took necessary steps in earnest to complete them under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana. As many as 50 projects would be completed by the year end, he said, adding that ₹80,000 crore has been allocated for improving irrigation.

The emphasis has also been given on developing micro-irrigation facilities and on promoting solar irrigation pumps, which could help farmers generate additional income by feeding excess power to the grid. “When we came to power, farmers have been paying a lot for getting insurance cover for their crops. We not only reduced the tariff for farmers, but increased the coverage. I am told that last year farmers across the country received ₹11,000 crore in claims, which was double of what was paid in the past,” Modi said. The government would strive to bring insurance cover to 50 per cent cultivated area in the country by this year, he added.

The Prime Minister said that ‘Operation Greens’ announced in the Budget this year, will benefit farmers growing tomato, onion and potato. He said 22,000 ‘Grameen Haats’ would be upgraded with appropriate infrastructure, and integrated with the e-NAM platform.

The Prime Minister also urged his officials to explore the possibility of involving students in competitions like hackathons so that they can participate in finding technical solutions to problems faced by the farmers.

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