Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 9

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday released the ninth installment of financial benefit under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), enabling the transfer of more than Rs 19,500 crore to more than 9.75 crore beneficiary farmer families.  

Speaking on the occasion, the PM said that he had urged the farmers to increase the production of pulses due to which there has been an increase of almost 50 per cent in the production in past six years.

“The work that we have done in pulses or in the past wheat and rice, the same resolve we have to take in the case of production of oilseeds in order to make the country self-sufficient,” the PM said.

Pointing that India, “for the first time”, has reached among the top-10 countries of the world in terms of agricultural exports, he said: “The country has set new records of agricultural exports during the Corona period. Today, when India is becoming recognized as a big agricultural exporting country, it is not right to stay dependent on imports for our needs of edible oil”.

He also said that the world famous ‘kesar’ (saffron) of Jammu and Kashmir will now be available in the Nafed outlets in the country.

“This will encourage the production of saffron in J&K,” the Prime Minister said.

While farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar called the yearly grant of Rs 6,000 under PM-Kisan “a minuscule amount”, questioning “whether a family can survive on Rs 500 a month”, BJP’s West Bengal leader Suvendu Adhikari said farmers of the state have been “deprived of the central benefit” due to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s “objection regarding direct transfer to the beneficiaries”.

An annual financial benefit of Rs 6,000 is provided to eligible beneficiary farmer families, payable in three equal four-monthly installments of Rs 2,000 each under the PM-KISAN scheme.

The PM hoped that the amount received on Monday will help the farmers. The scheme of Kisan Infrastructure Fund with Rs 1 lakh crore corpus also completed one year on Monday. 

The Prime Minister said the government has made the biggest ever purchase from farmers at MSP, whether Kharif or Rabi season. With this, about Rs 1,70,000 crore have reached directly into the accounts of rice farmers and about Rs. 85,000 crore have gone directly into the account of wheat farmers, he said

The PM said small and marginal farmers are now being given utmost priority in the agricultural policies by his government.

Under PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, Rs 1.6 lakh crore has been given to farmers so far. Out of this, Rs 1 lakh crore were transferred to small farmers during the pandemic period, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said.

Tomar the government is focusing on boosting the domestic production of edible oils and pulses through several schemes so that the country’s dependence on imports.