Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday said the Centre would invest Rs 18,000 crore to build 100 export clusters for agriculture and Rs 6,800 crore for an oilseeds mission to push self-sufficiency in production.
In a discussion in the Rajya Sabha, Chouhan said the Centre was developing 50,000 climate-friendly villages on a mission mode, apart from developing 1,500 new seed varieties.
Lambasting the Opposition for treating farmers as ‘vote-banks’, the minister said: “Who says there are no problems in agriculture? There are solutions as well, and we, in the agriculture ministry, will talk to everyone, including farmers and farmer organisations, to find solutions to complex and vexed issues.”
The Congress, on the other hand, accused Chouhan of “lying” and “misleading” the Rajya Sabha and said it would make a case of breach of privilege against him.
“The agriculture minister’s lie was caught red-handed because the Narendra Modi government gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court on February 6, 2015, saying that cost plus 50 per cent cannot be given to the farmers because this will spoil the market,” AICC General Secretary Randeep Surjewala said at a media briefing.
Chouhan admitted on the floor of the House that the government buys crops at minimum support price (MSP) only when the need arises, indicating that the government accepted that it does not buy the farmer’s crops at MSP because it does not consider it necessary, he said.
Aam Aadmi Party member Sanjay Singh said Chouhan claimed that he had reduced the price of fertiliser by Rs 10 which was a falsehood.
Chouhan told the Rajya Sabha that the government was working on a ‘One Health’ approach, which highlights the interrelationship between human, animal, plant, and environmental health.
On the storage and warehousing front, he said the government was investing Rs 1.40 crore on modern post-harvest infrastructure and there were plans to integrate another 1,500 mandis with the electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NaM) programme.
He highlighted the ministry’s emphasis on development of the seed sector by bringing back 2,500 traditional varieties in the crop system existing in 200 districts in the next two years.
To attain self-sufficiency in pulses and oilseeds, the minister said the government was working on developing model pulses and oilseeds villages in the next five years and cover 12 million hectares of area under micro-irrigation.
First Published: Aug 05 2024 | 6:00 PM IST
