Ashok Verma
Bathinda, July 13, 2020: Union minister for food processing industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal today told kinnow growers that her ministry would provide fifty per cent subsidy both for storage and transportation of kinnows to consumption centres.
Mrs Harsimrat Badal, who was interacting with kinnow growers’ alongwith Shiromani Akali Dal president and Ferozepur MP Sukhbir Singh Badal, urged kinnow and vegetable growers to take advantage of Operation Greens, a pro-farmer scheme which was conceptualized to make India self reliant. She said the scheme would also protect fruit and vegetable growers from distress selling due to lockdown and would reduce post-harvest losses.
Mrs Badal said Operation Green scheme had been recently extended from TOP (Tomato, Onion and Potato crops) to TOTAL (all notified horticulture crops). She said the scheme would be valid for a period of six months starting from June 11.
The Union minister said apart from the individual farmers, food processors, FPO/FPC, Co-operative societies, licensed commission agent, exporters, state marketing, Co-operative federations and retailers engaged in processing and marketing of fruits and vegetables were also eligible entities under the scheme. She said the ministry would provide 50 per cent of the cost of the transportation of eligible crops from surplus production cluster to consumption centre and hiring of appropriate storage facilities for eligible crops for a maximum period of three months.
Answering to the queries of the attendees, Mrs Badal said eligible entities who complied with the essential criteria could undertake the transportation and storage of notified crops from notified surplus production cluster, without any prior approval from MoFPI and thereafter submit their claim on online portal (www.sampada-mofpi.gov.in). “The applicant should register on the portal before carrying out transportation/storage of fruits and vegetables”, she added.
Going by a suggestion of SAD Patron Parkash Singh Badal, the union minister assured to arrange a meeting of the growers and traders with MoFPI officials at Badal village, who will further facilitate them to get themselves enrolled to avail the benefit of the scheme.
As the majority of the Kinnow growers had come from his parliamentary constituency, Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal appealed to form some producer groups to derive maximum benefit from the central scheme.