New Delhi: Amid prospect of a below-normal monsoon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday took stock of the government’s preparedness to boost the rural economy as well as a strategy to check price rise. Union ministers dealing with portfolios with direct concerns of rural economy and price rise briefed the PM on steps being readied to deal with the situation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi instructed Union ministers dealing with portfolios with direct concerns of rural economy and price rise to ensure that farmer distress is minimised, besides boosting rural economy. The Centre is also likely to increase the man-days under the MGNREGA from 100 to 150 or 200 days in drought-affected states, besides seeking greater convergence of the rural job scheme with other programmes, sources said.
The meeting was attended by Ananth Kumar, Uma Bharti, Ram Vilas Paswan and Radha Mohan Singh.
“The agriculture minister briefed the PM of the contingency measures for 500 districts, which could be rolled out in quick time, to mitigate the impact of poor rains. Diesel subsidy for farmers is one such option, besides providing subsidy to buy seeds for re-sowing. The PM is also keen that ‘lab to land’ — wherein the best technological interventions could be made in fields — is done soon. Issuing soil health cards will be taken up,” said a senior official.
Union rural development minister Nitin Gadkari said that trees will be planted on highways at a cost of Rs 200 crore, which will create 30 lakh jobs in rural areas.
