The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India is taking several measures to facilitate the farmers and farming activities at field level during the lock down period. The updated status is given below:

1. During Rabi season 2020, NAFED has procured 1,21,883 MT Pulses and Oilseeds on MSP for an amount of Rs. 596 crore, which has benefitted 89,145 farmers.

2. Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PM-GKY) about 5,516 MT of pulses has been dispatched for delivery to the States/UTs.

3. Under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) Scheme, during the lockdown period from 24.3.2020, about 8.31 crore farmer families have been benefitted and an amount of Rs. 16,621 crore has been released so far.

4. A meeting was held under the Chairmanship of Secretary, DAC&FW on 13.4.2020 through Video Conferencing to assess the problems being faced by the exporters of agriculture and allied commodities and to initiate necessary steps for redressal of their problems to help them sustain through the current COVID-19 crisis. Representatives of Associations of producers/exporters of agriculture commodities such as fruits, vegetables, basmati and non-basmati rice, seeds, flowers, plants, organic produce, agriculture equipment and machinery participated in the meeting.

5. Issues of exporters related to availability and movement of labour, bottlenecks in inter-state transport, shortage of raw materials, phyto-sanitary certification, closure of courier services, availability of freight services, access to ports/yards and clearance of goods for imports/exports were discussed and it was decided to resolve these issues appropriately to facilitate smooth import and export of agriculture and allied commodities.  

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