Union Budget 2017: Agriculture credit raised to record Rs 10 lakh crore

Target of agricultural loans to farmers set at record Rs 10 lakh crore in 2017-18:FM Jaitley

— ANI (@ANI_news) February 1, 2017

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In a major thrust to agriculture sector, Jaitley said, “With better Monsoon, Agriculture is expected to grow at 4.1% in current year.”

With better Monsoon, Agriculture is expected to grow at 4.1% in current year: FM Arun Jaitley

— ANI (@ANI_news) February 1, 2017

The government provides short-term crop loans up to Rs 3 lakh at subsidised interest rate of 7 per cent per annum. An additional incentive of 3 per cent is provided to farmers for prompt repayment of loans within due date, making an effective interest rate for them at 4 per cent.

Jaitley said the allocation for new crop insurance scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana’, which was launched last year, has been increased to Rs 13,240 crore this fiscal from budgeted Rs 5,500 crore. The allocation for the next fiscal has been earmarked at Rs 9,000 crore.

“The coverage of this scheme will be increased from 30 per cent of the cropped area in 2016-17 to 40 per cent in 2017-18 to 50 per cent in 2018-19,” he said.

The finance minister said that dedicated micro-irrigation fund will be created with a corpus of Rs 5000 crore.

Stating that dairy is an important source of additional income for farmers, he said the government will set up a dairy processing fund of Rs 8,000 crore over three years with initial corpus of Rs 2,000 crore.

Dairy processing infrastructure fund will be set up under NABARD, with fund of 8,000 crore: FM Jaitley

— ANI (@ANI_news) February 1, 2017

Jaitley also said the government will prepare a model law on contract farming which will be circulated to state government.