In Budget announcement 2018-19, Government of India has announced to develop and upgrade existing 22,000 rural haats into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs). In these GrAMs, physical infrastructure will be strengthened using MGNREGS and other Government Schemes.

Further, the Government has announced to set up of an Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the 22000 Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and 585 Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs).

Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India has been developing and up-grading physical infrastructure of rural haats under control of panchayat through States / Union Territories through Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for development of GrAMs.

Further, in pursuant to the Budget announcement, the Government has approved an Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund (AMIF) with a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the GrAMs and Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Markets and circulated the Scheme Guidelines to the States/Union Territories (UTs). Since it is a demand driven scheme from the States/UTs, there is no State-wise and year-wise allocation of the fund. The Government of India has already requested States/UTs for submission of proposal for seeking assistance under AMIF.

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

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