(FE)
The government is likely to agree to the demand since it will reduce the expenditure on construction of godowns, sources said. The new government at the Centre will come out with a slew of policies aimed at reducing the farm distress in the first leg of its term. Official sources say the agriculture ministry has firmed up a plan to extend benefits of the PM Kisan scheme to cover an additional two crore farmers, in what could take the number of beneficiaries under the cash transfer scheme to around 15 crore.
While the broad-basing of the PM Kisan scheme would cost `12,000 crore (taking the total annual cost to around `87,000 crore), it would ensure that practically all the farmer families in the country is entitled to the dole. Besides, sources said the ministry has also firmed up a plan to set up thousands of warehouses under a village storage scheme (VSS) so that farmers will be able to store their produces at marginal costs near their fields and sell those when market demand rises.
Consultation for the storage scheme, which would require substantial capital investment by the government and the private sector, started early this month. NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant chaired a meeting on the VSS on May 17 where top officials of private companies, industry chambers as well as different ministries participated.
