Prime Minister Modi to give big push to farmer welfare measures from Varanasi on June 18 | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Signaling his government’s strong commitment to enhancing farmer welfare across all states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his first visit to his parliamentary constituency Varanasi after securing his third term, will outline a comprehensive plan on June 18 for improving farmers’ conditions. As part of this initiative, he will transfer Rs 2,000 to the bank accounts of 9.3 crore landholder farmers under the PM-Kisan income support scheme and grant certificates to over 30,000 self-help groups designating women as ‘Krishi Sakhis‘ – trained in farm extension services.
Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has written to all chief ministers, including those from the opposition party ruled states, to join the event virtually and extend their support. “We want to take everyone along for the welfare of farmers,” said Chauhan.
Several Union ministers will join the event virtually from 50 select Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVKs) – farm extension centres – in different states. Besides addressing a gathering of farmers at Varanasi, Modi will virtually connect with thousands others who will be present at all 732 KVKs from across the country.
In addition, over one lakh Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and five Common Service Centres (CSCs) in rural areas will also participate in the event, organised to create awareness among farmers about various schemes and facilities including usage of AI-powered grievance chatbot (Kisan e-Mitra). The chatbot is designed to promptly assist farmers in their local languages, facilitating instant support.
“At present, its services are available in 12 languages and will soon be made available in remaining languages.So far, more than 70 lakh schemes related queries have been resolved using Kisan e-Mitra,” said Chauhan.
The ‘Krishi Sakhi’ programme, meant for training women in best practices of farming activities so that they can help fellow farmers, has been rolled out in 12 states – Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra. Rajasthan, Odisha, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya.
Chauhan said ‘Krishi Sakhi’ is one dimension of the government’s plan to make three crore ‘Lakhpati Didis’ and many ‘didis’ (sisters) have already been trained and 34,000 of them have even been certified as agriculture para-extension workers. “They have been trained so that they can support farmers in farming activities and can earn an additional income of about 60-80 thousand rupees annually,” said the minister, adding that they were chosen as agriculture para-extension workers because they are trusted community resource persons and experienced farmers themselves.
Under PM-Kisan, Modi will transfer around Rs 20,000 crores to 9.3 crore farmers through direct benefit transfer (DBT). The total amount transferred to farmer beneficiaries since the inception of the scheme in February, 2019 will cross over Rs 3.24 lakh crore on June 18.