After announcing the spending Rs 1 lakh during the launch of COVID-19 economic relief, now the government on Wednesday passed setting up agri-infra fund with Rs 1lakh crore to provide support to agri start-ups, entrepreneurs and agri-tech players for building new infrastructure and storage unit facilities for farm produce and allied activities.
The Union Cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision on Wednesday. "It is a historic decision. This will further strengthen the agriculture sector,” said Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, during the media briefing.
The passed Rs 1 Lakh is part of PM Modi economic relief of Rs 20 lakh announced in May to fight the economic crisis created by the on-going pandemic COVID-19. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam announced that Rs 1 lakh crore will be set up to build new storage facilities and build new infrastructure to help farmers store and sell their produce effectively.
Under this new agri-fund government will provide medium and longterm investment loans over the next 10 years to projects such as post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets with a low interest he said.
Banks and financial institutions will provide the loans to farmer groups, farmer producer organizations, agri-entrepreneurs, start-ups, and other farm-related companies related to storage and infrastructure.
At first, Rs 10,000 crore will be released this year in the next three years Rs 30,000 crores will be released for loan activity. Loans provided under this fund will have interested from Ts 3 per annum up to a limit of Rs 2 crore.
“The funds will be provided for setting up of cold stores and chains, warehousing, silos, assaying, grading and packaging units, e-marketing points linked to e-trading platforms and ripening chambers, besides PPP projects for crop aggregation sponsored by central/state/local bodies,” he added.
