Union Minister of State for Coal and Mines Satish Chandra Dubey has said that Rs 432.36 crore have been transferred into the bank accounts of 1,46,758 farmers in Meghalaya under the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme.
In his address at a programme held at ICAR, Umiam to telecast PM Narendra Modi’s virtual grant of fresh instalment of the scheme, Dubey said that about Rs 20,000 crore will be distributed among 9 crore 26 lakh beneficiaries across the country.
The Minister said that in this instalment, Rs 33.86 crore will be distributed among 1, 20,815 famers of Meghalaya.
He said that the scheme launched in 2019, has been recorded to have benefitted more than 11 crore farmers in the first phase. Since then, he said, regular programmes of similar nature were held for timely grant of the instalments to the needy farmers.
The Minister stated that during the last decade, the government has for the welfare of the farmers, in addition to increasing the budget allocated to farmers, steps have also been taken to bring about various welfare schemes to empower the backbone of the country’s economy-the farmers.
He informed the farmers present on the occasion that the government has increased the MSP of different crops to benefit the farmers. He further elaborated on the other schemes of the government which have largely benefitted the farming community. The government has also stressed on the promotion of organic farming throughout the country, the Minister added.
Dubey also stressed that the farmers have a greater role to play when it comes to ideas like vocal for local, where they should make their local products accessible in other parts of the country.
The Minister also interacted with the farmers where he elaborately discussed about the felicitation of the smooth flow of funds from the PM KISAN scheme and asked the state authorities to remove any hurdle faced by the farmers.
The Minister also distributed agricultural inputs like sprayers, pumps and automated weeding machines among the beneficiaries.