SME Times News Bureau | 09 Aug, 2020
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday launched the financing facility
under the Agricuture Infrastructure Fund worth Rs 1 lakh crore.
The agriculture infrastructure fund was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman as part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat economic package in May.
It will provide for funding of agriculture infrastructure projects at the
farm-gate and aggregation points such as primary agricultural cooperative
societies, farmer producer organisations and agriculture entrepreneurs, among others.
Infrastructure to be created through the fund would include post-harvest
infrastructure and community farming assets such as cold storage, collection
centres and processing units.
This will provide an impetus for development of other financially viable
post-harvest management infrastructure, as per the government.
It was announced in view of the lack of adequate cold chain and post-harvest
management infrastructure in the vicinity of farm-gate that causes gaps in
value chains.
The Prime Minister also initiated the transfer of Rs 17,100 crore benefit to
bank accounts of 8.55 crore farmers under the PM-KISAN scheme.
During the virtual launch programme, Modi also talked to farmers across states
through video conferencing.