Narendra Singh Tomar to Present Agriculture Infrastructure Fund Awards Today

Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar, and Kailash Choudhary, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, will attend an award ceremony in New Delhi today (30 July) to honour the best performing banks as well as state governments.

Among those attending the ceremony will be Manoj Ahuja, Secretary in the MoA&FW, Addl. Secretary Abhilaksh Likhi, Senior Officials from the Ministry and Government Officials from various States, Top Executives and Senior Officials from Banks, NABARD, NABCONS (NABARD Consultancy Services), scheme beneficiaries, and many other dignitaries from various organizations.

Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary, MoA&FW told media that this ceremony is being organized to recognise the commendable efforts and contributions of various banks, states, and field functionaries, and to encourage them to take this scheme to new heights.

Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) was established two years ago as a dedicated Central Government scheme to provide medium-long term credit facility for investment in the creation of post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets under the ambitious Aatmanirbhar Bharat Package.

This facility includes financial assistance in the form of a 3% interest subsidy from the government and credit guarantee from the CGTMSE fee up to two crore rupees. This scheme can be combined with existing Central and State Government schemes.

Farmers, Agri-entrepreneurs, FPO, SHG, JLG, PACS, APMC, Startup, Central, Marketing Cooperative Society, State Agencies, and others have benefited greatly from this.

As of now, out of over 23,000 applications received on the Agri Infra Fund's integrated Portal, www.agriinfra.dac.gov.in, 13,700 applicants have been sanctioned AIF loans totaling Rs.10,131 crore, with a combined investment of around Rs.17,500 crore by various lending institutions.

Warehouses, assaying units, primary processing units, custom hiring centres, sorting and grading units, cold store and cold chain projects, bio-stimulant manufacturing facilities, seed processing units, and other infrastructure projects have been approved and will have a significant impact on the country's agricultural landscape.