Chandigarh: Unveiling the third tranche of the Covid-19 economic package as part of the 20-lakh crore Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India Campaign), Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said it focuses on agriculture and its allied activities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his address to the nation, had said that recent set of announcements in addition to the government’s earlier Covid package and decisions of RBI amounts to Rs 20 lakh crore or 10 per cent of India’s GDP. He had pointed out that several bold reforms would have to be undertaken to make the country self-reliant so that the impact of the global pandemic could be negated.
The minister said that since the demand for milk reduced by 20-25% amid the COVID-19 lockdown, the government has brought a new scheme to provide interest subvention at 2% per annum to dairy cooperatives for 2020-21. The scheme will unlock Rs 5000 cr additional liquidity, a benefit to 2 cr farmers. To boost the agricultural activities, she added that the government will immediately create a Rs 1 lakh crore Agri-Infrastructure Fund for farm gate infrastructure for farmers.
The Finance Minister M Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday announced setting up of Rs 1 lakh crore agriculture infra fund for farm-gate infrastructure under the third tranche of the Rs 20 lakh crore COVID economic package as part of the “Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant)” campaign announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She also announced a Rs 10,000-crore scheme for the formalisation of micro food enterprises.
While the first tranche of measures focussed on alleviating the distress in the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sector, the second set was aimed at migrant workers, farmers, and street vendors. With the third phase of lockdown ending on May 17 and contours of the fourth stage being in discussion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his address to the nation, had said that recent set of announcements in addition to the government’s earlier COVID package and decisions of RBI amounts to Rs 20 lakh crore or 10 percent of India’s GDP. He had pointed out that several bold reforms would have to be undertaken to make the country self-reliant so that the impact of the global pandemic could be negated.
As on Friday morning, the total number of novel coronavirus cases in the country crossed the 80,000 marks, including 2649 deaths. While there are 51,401 active cases, as many as 27919 persons have recovered so far.