Nafed gets aid to buy pulses, oilseeds

The Centre on Wednesday doubled the guarantee to Rs 19,000 crore to National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed) to enable it to avail bank credit for procuring pulses and oilseeds at support price to help farmers in case of a crash in market prices.

The CCEA, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the regularisation and extension of government guarantee provided to lender bank for granting the credit limit to Nafed to Rs 19,000 crore from the earlier Rs 9,500 crore, an official statement said.

The CCEA also approved the government guarantee up to Rs 45 crore to the Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) for meeting its existing liability and settlement of extant claims, it added.

"These government guarantees are provided for a period of five years i.e. till 2021-22 by Government of India and with waiver of 1% government guarantee fee," the statement said.

It said since the market price of almost all pulses and oilseeds are ruling below MSP, the government guarantee will help in protecting the farmers producing these commodities from making distress sales.