Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the government would amend Essential Commodities Act to enable better price realization for farmers. Sitharaman said that there was a need to enable better price realization for farmers by attracting investments and making the agriculture sector competitive.
DETAILS
- Agriculture foodstuffs including cereals, edible oils, oilseeds, pulses, onions, and potato to be deregulated.
- Stock limit to be imposed under very exceptional circumstances like national calamities, famine, or a surge in prices.
- No such stock limit shall apply to processors or value chain participants, subject to their installed capacity or to any exporter subject to the exporter demand.
Meanwhile, Sitharaman today announced a new financing facility of Rs one lakh crore to boost cold chain and post-harvest management infrastructure. "The financing facility of Rs one lakh crore will be provided for funding infrastructure projects at the farm gate and aggregation. The fund will be created immediately, Sitharaman said. The finance minister also announced a Rs 10,000 crore scheme for formalisation of micro food enterprises (MFE).
The scheme will be launched to help 2 lakh MFEs by adopting cluster-based approach such as mango in Uttar Pradesh, kesar in Jammu & Kashmir, bamboo shoots in North-East, chilli in Andhra Pradesh, tapioca in Tamil Nadu. This fund would help in reaching untapped export markets in view of improved health consciousness.
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