Government assures expanded market scope for farmers

 The Dollar Business Bureau In a move towards providing financial aid to the farmers, the Indian Department of Agriculture and Cooperation is implementing a market scheme that would help farmers in times of glut in production and fall of prices. The Minister of State for Agriculture, Mohanbhai Kundaria, on Tuesday, informed that the scheme named Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) was aimed at procurement of agricultural and horticultural commodities, which are generally perishable in nature. The Minister further informed that the MIS would extend financial support to the farmers by providing remunerative prices in cases of excess production and fall in prices. The MIS implementation is coming into effect in line with the requests made by the State governments expressing their willingness to share losses with Central Government on 50:50 basis (75:25 in case of North-Eastern States), with the Central government and under MIS, the funds will not be allocated to States, the Minister informed. The Minister also informed that a Central Sector Scheme on ‘Promotion of National Agricultural Market through Agri-Tech Infrastructure Fund (ATIF)’, that was setup with Rs 200 crore fund, would be implemented during 2016-17. Under this scheme, it was proposed to utilize the ATIF for migration to the National Agri Markets, through the effective implementation of the e-commerce platforms that would be implemented in 642 regulated wholesale markets across the country. The timeline for operationalisation of this scheme is till 2016-17, however, will go into action only based on the proposals and requests by the State government, the Minister informed. To further strengthen the marketing system in the country, the government has taken key measures which include inter-alia, implementation of Central Sector of Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM), among others. Under the scheme, the assistance would be provided towards developing market infrastructure including storage, venture capital assistance to the projects aiding market linkages to farmers, assistance to the capacity building for farmers and other stake holders and also an additional support for strengthening ‘Agmarknet’ portal, which provides information on prices and arrivals of agriculture commodities in wholesale regulated markets. The Department is also likely to bring further reforms in States’ agriculture market sector, by providing more alternatives other than the existing regulated wholesale markets, for sale of farmer produce, so that the farmer can opt for most remunerative option.  

This article was published on March 17, 2015.