Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday announced schemes that the government will unveil in the next few days after cabinet approval, which include developing 100 horticulture clusters with an investment of ₹18,000 crore in the next five years and the much-awaited national oilseeds mission with an outlay of ₹6,800 crore.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha during a discussion on agriculture, Chouhan said: “We will create 100 export-oriented horticulture clusters in the next five years with an investment of ₹18,000 crore. We are investing an astounding ₹1.40 lakh crore to create post-harvest infrastructure. We will integrate 1,500 mandis (with e-NAM). With an adequate investment of ₹6,800 crore, we are starting an oilseeds mission so that we become self-sufficient.”

The minister further said the government will develop 50,000 villages as climate-resilient units. He also said that some important amendments will be made in the Pesticides Law to ensure quality agro-chemicals are made available to farmers.

6 priorities

On August 2, he had announced that the government has set six priorities for growth of the agriculture sector – raising production, reducing cost of production, fair price to farmers, financial relief to farmers on crop damage, crop diversification and natural farming. He had highlighted the “achievements” of the Modi government in the last 10 years and assured the House that the Centre is committed to providing remunerative prices for crops to farmers as well as continuing the policy of making urea and DAP fertilisers available to farmers at highly subsidised rates.

Continuing the speech on Monday in the Upper House, Chouhan responded to the Opposition’s attack on him for the 2016 firing incident in Mandasaur (in Madhya Pradesh) that led to death of six farmers by counting past incidents of aggression on farmers by different Congress governments. “I had told you (Opposition) not to provoke me. I will not spare you now.”

Dig at Oppn

Pointing at Congress MP Digvijay Singh, who was Chouhan’s predecessor as chief minister in MP, the Agriculture Minister said 24 farmers had died in firing during Digvijaya Singh’s tenure. He reeled out several incidents of firing in which farmers had died during the Congress’s tenure. He said in the Independence Day addresses of successive Prime Ministers, farmers were were ignored till the time Narendra Modi assumed charge as PM.

“Jawaharlal Nehru did not utter the word ‘farmer’ in any of his speeches, even Indira Gandhi spoke on couple of occasions but it was said casually, no talks on policy issues,” Chouhan said, adding: “Even for Rajiv Gandhi, it (farmer) was not priority. Congress never had any priority for farmers.”

Reacting to the statement of Chouhan, Congress MP RS Surjewala and AAP MP Sanjay Singh told media outside Parliament that – the Opposition will move a motion on breach of privilege against Chouhan for misleading the House by stating wrong facts, after going through the record of the proceedings.

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