Shimla. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has thanked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for launching a financing facility of Rs one lakh crore under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund yesterday for agri-entrepreneurs, startups, agri-tech players and farmer groups for post-harvest management and nurturing farm assets.
Jai Ram Thakur said that the scheme had been designed to help farmers, as the Fund will catalyse the creation of post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets such as cold storage, collection centres and processing units.
Moreover, these funds will enable the farmers to get greater value for their produce as they will be able to store and sell at higher prices, reduce wastage and increase processing and value addition, he added.
Chief Minister said this Fund would go a long way in strengthening the economy of the farmers and horticulturists by creating infrastructure facilities such as modern cold store chains in villages besides exploring opportunities to invest in post harvest management solutions such as warehousing and food processing.
Jai Ram Thakur said that Central Government has always been considerate towards the welfare of the farming community. He said that about 9,12,078 farmers of the State have been benefitted under PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana.
He said that an amount of Rs 977.77 crore have been disbursed to these farmers of the State through six instalments. He said that the work of providing benefits to eligible farmers of the State under this scheme was still going on.
Chief Minister also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for releasing another instalment of over Rs.17,000 crores into the bank accounts of 8.5 crore farmers of the country under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana which would go a long way in empowering the farming community.
He said that no middlemen or commission was needed as the amount was being transferred straight to the accounts of the farmers.
