Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today said that the Central government will be investing Rs 18,000 crore for building 100 export clusters for agriculture and has plans for an oilseeds mission with an investment of Rs 6,800 crore to push self-sufficiency in production.
While replying to a discussion on the working of his ministry in Parliament, Chouhan said to build a climate-resilient agriculture system in the country, the Central government is developing 50,000 climate-friendly villages across the country on a mission-mode apart from developing 1,500 new seed varieties.
He said farmers would be given a digital identity of their own for which the government is working on a plan.
“Who says there are no problems in agriculture, but 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,” Chouhan said, lambasting the Opposition Congress for treating farmers as just ‘vote-banks.’
In response, the Opposition Congress accused Chouhan of “lying” and “misleading” the Rajya Sabha while replying to the discussion on his ministry and said it would make a case of breach of privilege against him.
“Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s lie was caught red-handed because the Modi government gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court on February 6, 2015, saying that cost + 50 per cent cannot be given to the farmers of the country because this will spoil the market,” said Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala at a media briefing.
Agriculture Minister Chouhan admitted on the floor of the House that the government buys crops at MSP only whenever the need arises, which means that the government accepted that it does not buy the farmer’s crops at MSP because it does not consider it necessary, he said.
Surjewala said a case of ‘breach of privilege’ will also be raised against Chouhan on the charge of “misleading” the House and the country.
Aam Aadmi Party member Sanjay Singh said that Chouhan claimed that he had reduced the price of fertiliser by Rs 10, which is a falsehood.
Meanwhile, Chouhan in his address, while laying down the vision that the current Narendra Modi government has for the farmers, said that the government is working on a One Health Approach, which highlights the interrelationship between human, animal, plant, and environmental health.
He said on the storage and warehousing front, an unprecedented investment of Rs 1.40 lakh crore is being made in modern post-harvest infrastructure, while there are plans to integrate another 1,500 mandis with the electronic National Agriculture Mandi (e-NaM) programme of the government.
He said on the input side, special emphasis is being laid on the development of the seed sector through a multi-pronged approach wherein steps will be taken to bring back 2,500 traditional varieties in the crop system existing in 200 districts in the next two years.
The minister said to attain self-sufficiency in pulses and oilseeds, work is on developing model pulses and oilseeds villages in the next five years and covering 1 crore 20 lakh hectares of area under micro irrigation.
First Published: Aug 05 2024 | 6:00 PM IST
