J&K all set to play major role in agri sector: Union Minister

Jammu, June 18

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said that it was time that opinion makers should create awareness that farmers today have become agriculture entrepreneurs.

“It is important for opinion makers to create this awareness that today’s farmer is not the farmer of the yesteryears but he is an agriculture entrepreneur or agri-tech start-up. One of the best examples of this has come from J&K which gave birth to Aroma Mission and offered livelihood and start-up opportunities to thousands of agri-workers through lavender cultivation which began from the small town of Bhaderwah,” he said.

Singh took part in an event at SKUAST Jammu to telecast PM Narendra Modi’s virtual grant of fresh instalment of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi.

Referring to the agriculture sector as an important future component of India’s economy, Jitendra Singh said this is one sector which had not remained fully explored and J&K is going to play an important part.

Since the launch of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, Jitendra Singh said, “regular programmes of similar nature were held for timely grant of the instalments to the needy farmers and the process continued over the second term of PM and is now also seen in third term with the first function happening within just one month of the swearing-in of the ministry for the third term”.

He said, “As the name indicates, the amount transferred to the accounts of needy farmers is not only a means of providing financial support but it is also an expression of the society’s respect and acknowledgement of farmer as ‘annadata’ and therefore the scheme has been appropriately named as Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme.”

Singh also underlined the use of technology in PM Kisan Samman scheme where more than five lakh common service centres have been opened and even artificial intelligence has been used to produce AI chatbot called Kisan e-mitra which is available in 11 Indian languages and soon will be available in Dogri and Kashmiri as well.