Finance minister Piyush Goyal on Friday announced a relief package of Rs 75,000 crore under a new scheme PM Kisaan Samman Nidhi for distressed farmers who have seen their incomes stagnate because of plunging prices, barely enough to pay for loans and input costs.
As part of the package, which includes an income support scheme, will transfer a sum of Rs 6,000 per year to farmers who own upto 2 hectares of land.
“Assured income to be transferred via Direct Benefit Transfer in three equal instalments,” Goyal said while presenting the interim budget 2019-20.
Discussion on a relief package for the farm sector has been on talks for some time now, with the agriculture ministry, along with the government’s premier policy think-tank NITI Aayog defining the broad contours of the plan.
Farm sector slowdown has snowballed into a big political issue ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in April-May. Prices have fallen sharply in many commodities, pummeled by a production glut, forcing many farmers to dump their produce at extremely low prices that hardly covers for their cost.
Many states, including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, where the Congress has recently formed governments upstaging the BJP, have announced loan write offs for farmers to tide over an income crisis.
Experts believe that an income support scheme is more effective as compared to loan waivers.
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