Centre extends financial aid to Farmers affected due to floods and COVID 19
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New Delhi, Feb 13: The Central Government, by keeping in view the spread of COVID 19 virus in India has decided to treat it as a notified disaster for the purpose of providing assistance under State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for 2019-20 and 2020-21. The State Governments undertake relief measures in the wake of natural disasters, including floods, from the State Disaster Risk Management Fund (SDRMF) already placed at their disposal in accordance with Government of India’s approved items and norms. Additional assistance is extended from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) as per established procedure.
The Central Government considering WHO's declaration of COVID 19 as pandemic, by way of a special onetime dispensation, has decided to treat it as a notified disaster. Accordingly, the Central Govt has released the first installment of central share of Rs 11,092 crore in advance under SDRMF to all the states. Subsequently, the second installment of central share has also been released to 17 states amounting to Rs 7866 crore. Further, the states have been allowed to spend 50 per cent of the amount allocated during the year 2020-21 under SDRMF on COVID 19 management.
According to the norms, assistance is inter-alia provided to the farmers in the wake of natural calamities, including floods, in the form of agriculture input subsidy. Further, during COVID 19 pandemic, the agriculture sector functioned smoothly. All necessary measures were taken to ensure smooth operation of agriculture related activities. Many programmes were also launched to assist the farmers of the country during the lockdown period. The programmes include Pradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana, Kisan Rails, PM KISAN Yojana and several others.
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From Mar 2020 to Feb 2021, funds amounting to Rs 62,301 crore have been transferred to the bank accounts of PM KISAN beneficiaries. The Kisan Rails were operated for the first time from July, 2020 to facilitate movement of perishable Agri-Horticulture commodities. The Central Sector Scheme of financing facility under Agri Infrastructure Fund, which is planned to be operational from the year 2020 to 2030 and the aim is creation of infrastructure at the farm gate. Under the National Bee and Honey Mission (NBHM), Rs 500 crore has been allocated for the sector from 2020 to 2023. The implementation of Kisan Credit Card in the form of concessional credit boost to 2.5 crore farmers through. So far 174.96 lakh Kisan Credit Cards have been issued as part of the KCC saturation drive since Feb 2020. Under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana (PMFBY), total claims of Rs 30802.02 crore have been settled for 256.29 lakh farmers during the COVID 19 pandemic from Mar 2020 to Jan 2021.
The Central Sector Scheme 'Supporting Dairy Cooperatives and Farmer Producer Organizations engaged in dairy activities' is operational since 2016-17 with a corpus of Rs 300 crore to be used for providing soft loans for working capital to enable State Dairy Cooperative Federations to provide a stable market access to farmers. An amount of Rs 203 crore has been released to National Dairy Development Board, till Dec 2020 for implementation of the scheme during 2020-21. The 'interest subvention on working capital loan' with a total outlay of Rs 100 crore for supporting the dairy cooperatives to overcome problems being faced due to COVID 19 has been approved by Govt of India for FY 2020-21.