Nirmala Sitharaman Unveils Third Tranche Of Covid-19 Relief Package Focused On Agriculture

“We’ve been taking inputs and based on that we’ve been working. PM Garib Kalyan was a package announced hours after the lockdown. It had monies going. Rs 500 for women with Jan Dhan accounts for three months. There was money given. It may not be adequate. I grant that. Nothing can be adequate at this time when people are cutoff, when people are staying put in their house, when people don’t have the money they earned given to them, their salaries are not coming. Nothing can be adequate. But the first thing we announced was give money to people. Give gas to them to cook in their houses so that they don’t go running for fuel to cook food. Give them free grains. We did do that.”

—Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

The government will bring in a facilitative legal framework to ensure that farmers get a predictable price and predictable sales of their produce.

Farmers will be able to engage with processors, aggregators, large retailers and exports so that they can fix their fair price, be sure that they can export and in the process benefit from better technical assistance.

The government has announced that a new law will be formulated to provide adequate choices to farmers to sell their produce at attractive prices, the finance minister said.

The law will remove barriers on inter-state trade and establish a framework for e-trading of agriculture produce.

Earlier, Sitharman said, that farmers were bound to sell produce only to licensees in APMCs. Such restriction results in hindrannce in free flow of the agriculture supply chain.

The new central law will remove all these hindrances, she said.

The government will make changes to the Essential Commodities Act to enable better price realisation for farmers, the finance minister said.

Agriculture foods like cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onions and potatoes will now be deregulated.

There will be stock limit imposed under very exceptional circumstances like a famine with surge in prices.

Stock limits won't apply to processors or value chain participants.

The government will extend Operation Greens—which covers tomatoes, onions and potatoes—to all fruits and vegetables.

The scheme includes 50 percent subsidy on transportation from surplus to deficient markets. It also has a 50 percent subsidy on storage, including cold storages.

The pilot was done for 6 months and will now be expanded and extended. The plan is expected to deliver better prices, reduced wastages and affordable produce.