Centre planning to remit urea subsidy in bank accounts of farmers: Kishan Reddy
Vijayawada: Union minister G. Kishan Reddy has said the Centre is contemplating to remit the subsidy for urea into the bank accounts of beneficiary farmers on the lines of domestic gas subsidy.
He was addressing a gathering in Eluru on Monday during the virtual release of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi’s 12th release of funds and the virtual launch of 600 PM Kisan Samriddhi Kendras and the ‘One Nation-One Fertilizer’ programme by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Union minister said the original cost of a bag of urea (45kg) was Rs 2,503. For this, a farmer would pay only Rs 266 while the remaining Rs 2,236.50 would be paid by the central government in the form of subsidy.
He said the Modi-led central government helped 25 crore women open Jan Dhan accounts in banks.
Praising farmers for “providing food to 130 crore people three times a day,” the minister said the prime minister came up with a series of schemes for the benefit of farmers. Fertilizer subsidy was one such.
Reddy said the central government made all arrangements to ensure that no farmer would stand in a queue to get their quota of fertilizers. Farmers would do well to adopt organic farming, he said, and added that the Centre would help farmers take up soil test, for them to decide which crop would give them better yield.
The minister called upon the farmers to give up mass cultivation practices and raise crops that suited the soil in each area.
The Centre has been revising the minimum support price (MSP) to crops from time to time for the benefit of farmers. “The Centre is keen on the welfare of farmers and hence is remitting Rs 6,000 per farmer family per annum into their bank accounts under the PM Kisan programme. So far, a sum of Rs 16,000 crore was remitted into their accounts,” he said.
The Union minister said there were 2.70 lakh fertilizer shops in the country. All of them would be converted into PM Kisan Samridhi Kendras, from where farmers will get supply of farm inputs like fertilizers etc.
