Farmers’ income is estimated through the survey conducted by NSSO. As per last “Situation Assessment Survey” conducted in 2012-13, Monthly Agricultural Household Income was estimated as Rs.6426/- which increased to Rs.10218/- as per the survey conducted in 2018-19.

Government had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee in April, 2016 to examine issues relating to “Doubling of Farmers Income (DFI)” and recommend strategies to achieve the same.  The Committee submitted its final report to the Government in September, 2018 containing the strategy for doubling of farmers’ income through various policies, reforms & programmes. 

Agriculture being a State Subject, the State Governments take appropriate measures for development of agriculture and welfare of farmers in the State. However, Government of India supplements the efforts of States through appropriate policy measures and budgetary support and various schemes/ programmes.  As per the strategy suggested by DFI Committee, Government has adopted and implemented several policies, reforms, developmental programmes and schemes for achieving higher incomes for the farmers. These include:

1.         Unprecedented enhancement in budget allocation

In the year 2013-14 the budget allocation of Ministry of Agriculture (including DARE) and Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying was only 30223.88 crore. This has increased by more than 4.35 times to Rs. 1,31,612.41 crore in 2023-24.

2.         Income support to farmers through PM KISAN

Launch of PM-KISAN in 2019 -an income support scheme providing Rs. 6000 per year in 3 equal installments. More than Rs. 2.24 lakh crore has been released so far to more than 11 crore farmers as of now.

3.          Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)

Six year - PMFBY was launched in 2016 addressing problems of high premium rates for farmers and reduction in sum insured due to capping. In past 6 Years of implementation – 37.66 crore farmer applications have been enrolled and over 12.38 crore (Provisional) farmer applicants have received claims. During this period nearly Rs. 25,174 crore were paid by farmers as their share of premium against which claims of over Rs. 1,30,185 crore (Provisional) have been paid to them. Thus for every 100 rupees of premium paid by farmers, they have received about Rs. 517 as claims.

4.         Institutional credit for agriculture sector

1. Increased from Rs. 7.3 lakh crore in 2013-14 with a target to reach Rs. 18.5 lakh crore in 2022-23. 
2. Benefit of concessional institutional credit through KCC at 4% interest per annum has also now been extended to Animal Husbandry and Fisheries farmers for meeting their short-term working capital needs.
3. A special drive has been undertaken since February 2020 to provide concessional institutional credit with focus on covering all PM-KISAN beneficiaries through Kisan Credit Cards (KCC). As on 30.12.2022, 389.33 lakh new KCC applications have been sanctioned with a sanctioned credit limit of Rs. 4,51,672 crore as part of the drive.

5.         Fixing of Minimum Support Price (MSP) at one-and-a half times the cost of production –

1. Government has increased the MSP for all mandated Kharif, Rabi and other commercial crops with a return of at least 50 per cent over all India weighted average cost of production from 2018-19. 
2. MSP for Paddy (common) has increased to Rs. 2040 per quintal in 2022-23 from Rs. 1310 per quintal in 2013-14.
3. MSP for Wheat increased from Rs. 1400 per quintal in 2013-14 to Rs. 2125 per quintal in 2022-23.

6.         Promotion of organic farming in the country

1. Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) was initiated in 2015-16 to promote organic farming in the country. 32,384 clusters have been formed and an area of 6.53 lakh hectare has been covered benefitting 16.19 lakh farmers. In addition, Under Namami Gange Programme 1.23 lakh hectare area covered and under natural farming 4.09 lakh hectare area covered. Farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand have taken-up organic farming on either side of the river Ganga to control river water pollution as well as to fetch additional income to farmers.
2. Government also proposes to promote sustainable natural farming systems through the scheme Bhartiya Prakratik Krishi Padhati (BPKP). The proposed scheme aims at cutting down cost of cultivation, enhancing farmer’s income and ensuring resource conservation and, safe and healthy soils, environment and food.
3. Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North East Region (MOVCDNER) has been launched. 379 Farmer Producer Companies have been formed comprising of 1,89,039 farmers and covering 1,72,966 hectare area.

7.         Per Drop More Crop

Per Drop More Crop (PDMC) scheme was launched in the year 2015-16 which aims to increase water use efficiency, reducing cost of inputs and increasing productivity at the farm level through Micro Irrigation technologies i.e. drip and sprinkler irrigation systems. So far, an area of 72 lakh hectare has been covered under Micro irrigation through the PDMC scheme from the year 2015-16.

8.         Micro Irrigation Fund

A Micro Irrigation Fund of initial corpus Rs 5,000 crore has been created with NABARD. In the Budget Announcement for 2021-22, the corpus of the fund is to be increased to Rs.10,000 crore. Projects worth Rs 4,710.96 crore covering 17.09 lakh hectares have been approved.

9.         Promotion of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)

1. A new Central Sector Scheme for Formation & Promotion of new 10,000 FPOs launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister on 29th February, 2020 with budget outlay of Rs 6865 Crore till 2027-28.
2. As on 30.11.2022, 4028 no. of FPOs have been registered under new FPO scheme.
3. Equity Grant of Rs. 65.33 Crore has been released to 1,730 FPOs as on 31.12.2022.
4. As on 31.12.2022, Credit Guarantee Cover worth Rs. 101.78 crore issued to 583 FPOs.

10.       A National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM) has been launched in 2020 as part of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan to increase productivity of crops through pollination and increase in honey production as an additional source of income. Rs. 500 crore for the period 2020-2021 to 2022-2023 has been allocated for beekeeping sector. 114 projects for assistance of about Rs. 139.23 crore, approved/ sanctioned for funding under NBHM during 2020-21, 2021-22 & 2022-23 till date.   

11.       Agricultural Mechanization

Agricultural mechanization is an extremely vital to modernize agriculture and reduce drudgery of farming operations. During the period from 2014-15 to March, 2022 an amount of Rs.5,490.82 crore have been allocated for agricultural mechanization. 13,88,314 numbers of machines and equipments have been provided to farmers on subsidy basis. 18,824 custom hiring centers, 403 high-tech hubs and 16,791 farm machinery banks have been established to make available agricultural machines and equipments to the farmers on rental basis. During the current year i.e. 2022-23, so far an amount of Rs. 585.50 crore have been released for distribution of around 75,391 machines on subsidy, establishment of 3,468 CHCs, 64 Hi-tech hubs and 2281 Village Level Farm Machinery Banks. 

12.       Providing Soil Health Cards to farmers

Soil Health Card Scheme was introduced in the year 2014-15 to optimize usage of nutrients. The following numbers of cards have been issued to farmers;

1. Cycle-I (2015 to 2017) – 10.74 crore
2. Cycle-II (2017 to 2019)- 12.19 crore
3. Model Village Programme (2019-20)- 23.71 lakh
4. In the year 2020-21- 11.52 lakh

13.       Setting up of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) extension Platform

1. 1260 mandis of 22 States and 03 UTs have been integrated to e-NAM platform.
2. As on 31.12.2022, more than 1.74 Crore Farmers & 2.39 Lakh traders have been registered on e-NAM portal.
3. Total volume of 7.07 Crore MT & 20.88 Crore numbers (bamboo, betel leaves, coconut, lemon & sweet corn) collectively worth approximately Rs. 2.42 lakh crore of trade has been recorded on e-NAM platform as on 31.12.2022.

14.       Launch of the National Mission for Edible Oils – Oil Palm - NMEO has been approved with a total outlay of Rs 11,040 crore. This will bring an additional area of 6.5 lakh hectare under Oil Palm plantation with 3.28 lakh hectare in the north-eastern states and 3.22 lakh hectare in the rest of India in the next 5 years. The major focus of the Mission is to provide Viability Prices of fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) to the farmers linked with assured procurement by industry with a simpler price fixing formula.

15.       Agri Infrastructure Fund (AIF)

Since inception of AIF in the year 2020, the scheme has sanctioned an amount of Rs.16,117 crore worth agriculture infrastructure in the country for 22,354 projects. With the support of the scheme, various agriculture infrastructures were created and some of the infrastructure are at the final stage of completion. These infrastructures include 8,752 warehouses, 4,188 primary processing units, 2,635 custom hiring centres, 1,217 sorting & grading units, 859 cold store projects, 163 assaying units and around 4,257 other kinds of post-harvest management projects and community farming assets.

16.       Improvement in farm produce logistics, Introduction of Kisan Rail.

Kisan Rail has been launched by Ministry of Railways to exclusively cater to movement of perishable agrihorti commodities. First Kisan Rail was started in July 2020. Till 31st December, 2022, 2359 services on 167 routes have been operated.

17.       MIDH - Cluster Development Programme

The Cluster Development Programme (CDP) is designed to leverage geographical specialisation of horticulture clusters and promote integrated and market-led development of pre-production, production, post-harvest, logistics, branding, and marketing activities. DA&FW has identified 55 horticulture clusters, of which 12 have been selected for the pilot phase of the CDP.

18.       Creation of a Start-up Eco system in agriculture and allied sector

So far, 1102 Startups during FY 2019-20 to 2022-23 have been finally selected by different knowledge partners and agribusiness incubators of DA&FW. A total of Rs. 66.83 crore grants-in-aid has been released for funding to these Startups to the respective Knowledge Partners (KPs) & RKVY RAFTAAR Agri Business Incubator (R-ABIs) as grants-in-aid support by DA&FW.

19.         Achievement in Export of Agri and Allied Agri- Commodities

The country has witnessed emphatic growth in export of agri and allied commodities. As compared to previous year 2020-21, the Agri and allied export has increased from 41.86 billion USD in 2020-21 to 50.24 billion USD in 2021-22 i.e. an increase of 19.99%.

The efforts of Government at positive implementation of these schemes have yielded remarkable results towards augmenting the income of the farmers. As part of the ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has released a book, which contains compilation of success stories of 75,000 farmers out of innumerable successful farmers who have increased their income more than two times.

A total amount of funds for Rs. 63,494.84 crore was surrendered by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare during the last 3 financial years i.e. 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 on account of following reasons:

(i) Due to unspent balance with States/Implementing Agencies from release made earlier mainly Goa, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh etc.

(ii) Due to delay in compliance of Department of Expenditure’s guidelines for new procedure of fund release, States could not furnish various compliance statements and also there were unspent balance in State treasury.  Single nodal account (SNA) mapping on PFMS portal for many states were also incomplete and various checklist, undertaking etc were not furnished by States/UTs. Therefore, funds were not released to many States/UTs.

(iii) Utilization of mandatory 10% Gross Budgetary Support allocation for North Eastern States is constrained on account of low capacity, saturation in entitlement based scheme, less Gross Cropped Area as compared to the national average and community land holding in NE States.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

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