In order to bridge the Agriculture Infrastructure gap by empowering agriculture and villages and boosting private investment, the Government of India launched a Central Sector Scheme of financing facility under ‘Agriculture Infrastructure Fund’. The Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) is a medium-long term debt financing facility through interest subvention and credit guarantee support on loans for investment in viable projects for post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets.

Under the scheme, Rs. 1 Lakh Crore will be provided by banks and financial institutions as loans with interest subvention of 3% per annum and credit guarantee coverage under CGTMSE for loans up to Rs. 2 Crores to the eligible beneficiaries include farmers, FPOs, PACS, Marketing Cooperative Societies, SHGs, Joint Liability Groups (JLG), Multipurpose Cooperative Societies, Agri-entrepreneurs, Start-ups, and Central/State agency or Local Body sponsored Public-Private Partnership Projects for creation of post-harvest management infrastructures like Supply chain services including e-marketing platforms, Warehouses, Silos, Pack houses, Assaying units, Sorting & grading units, Cold chains, Logistics facilities, Primary processing centres, Ripening Chambers etc.

Community farming assets eligible under Agri Infra Fund includes: Organic inputs production, Bio stimulant production units, Infrastructure for smart and precision agriculture, Projects identified for providing supply chain infrastructure for clusters of crops including export clusters, Projects promoted by Central/State/Local Governments or their agencies under PPP for building community farming assets or post-harvest management projects

Since the inception of the scheme in Aug 2020, loan amounting to Rs. 13681 Crores have been sanctioned for 18321 projects. These sanctioned projects have mobilized an investment of Rs. 27184 crores in agriculture sector. Major projects sanctioned under AIF include 8118 warehouses, 2817 primary processing units, 1936 custom hiring centres, 948 sorting & grading units, 704 cold store projects, 163 assaying units and around 3651 other kinds of post-harvest management projects and community farming assets.

Government is spreading awareness about AIF Schemes by way of sensitising Bankers and other stakeholders through conducting various events, seminars, workshops at various levels to accelerate agriculture infrastructure financing throughout the nook and corner of the country.          

Apart from AIF, the Government has also implemented the following schemes for bringing improvements in the Infrastructure Facilities in the Agriculture:

1. Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI), a sub-scheme of Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM) under which assistance is provided for construction/ renovation of godowns/ warehouses in the rural areas in the States to enhance the storage capacity for agriculture produce. AMI is demand driven scheme in which subsidy is provided at the rate of 25% and 33.33% on capital cost of the project based on the category of eligible beneficiary. Assistance under this scheme is available to Individuals, Farmers, Group of farmers/growers, Agri-preneurs, Registered Farmer Produce Organizations (FPOs), Cooperatives, and state agencies etc. The scheme is demand driven.

                    Since 01.04.2001 and up to 31.10.2022, a total of 42079 storage infrastructure projects (Godowns), with storage capacity of 738.34 Lakh MT for beneficiaries including farmers have been assisted under AMI sub-scheme in the country.

2. National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) scheme, a virtual platform integrating physical wholesale mandis/ markets of different States/ Union Territories (UTs) to facilitate online trading of agriculture and horticulture commodities to enable farmers to realize better remunerative prices for their produce.

                   As on 30^th November, 2022, 1260 mandis of 22 States and 03 Union Territories (UTs) have been integrated with e-NAM platform. More than 1.74 crore farmers & 2.3 Lakh traders have been registered on e-NAM platform. The agricultural produce trade with a value of Rs 2.34 lakh crore have been recorded on e-NAM platform.

3. Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) under which financial assistance for setting up of Post-Harvest Management Infrastructure including cold storage, cold room facilities for horticultural produce @ 35% of the project cost in general areas and 50% in case of hilly and scheduled areas per beneficiary is available. The component is demand/ entrepreneur driven through commercial ventures for which Government assistance is credit linked and back ended.

4. Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), a Centrally Sponsored Scheme under which the funds are released to the State Governments as Grants-in-Aid on the basis of projects in Agriculture & allied sectors approved in the State Level Sanctioning Committee Meeting (SLSC) headed by the Chief Secretary of the concerned State, which is the empowered body to approve projects under the scheme. In this scheme Sates has flexibility and autonomy in the process of selection, planning, approval and execution projects in agriculture and allied sectors as per their priorities. RKVY is primarily a project oriented scheme, the benefit of which is available to all sections of the farming community.

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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