Amit Shah inaugurates the National Mega Conclave on FPO in the cooperative sector and releases the action plan for formation of 1100 new FPOs by PACS

Shri Amit Shah said that agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries-based economic activities are the strength of the Indian economy, but they are never discussed in the country. He said that today these three sectors together make up 18 percent of India's GDP. Shri Shah said that in a way agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries are the backbone of the country's economy and strengthening them means strengthening the country's economy. He said that if GDP increases through manufacturing, then the employment figures do not increase that much, but if agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries are strengthened through cooperatives, then along with GDP, employment opportunities will also increase.

The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that about 65 percent of the people in India are engaged in agriculture and allied activities directly and about 55 percent of the workforce is engaged in agriculture and allied activities. He said that all other services are also indirectly dependent on agriculture in rural areas. Shri Shah said that today 86 percent of the farmers of the country are small and marginal farmers, who have less than one hectare of land. He said that India is the only country in the whole world which did not allow small farmers to become laborers and they are the owners of their land. He said that in order to modernize agriculture, get good prices for agricultural produce and make agriculture profitable, we have to move out of traditional methods and adopt today's contemporary methods and this PACS as FPOs is a new beginning in this series.

Amit Shah said that it is the In Toto responsibility of the government and the cooperative sector to ensure that the life of all those associated with agriculture is as comfortable as that of the people involved in the service sector. He said that FPO was conceived in 2003 by Yogendra Alag Committee during the time of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said that when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of the country, he decided to implement the suggestion of  FPO. Shah said that the magnitude of this initiative is that today 11,770 FPOs are working in the country and through these and through these, lakhs of farmers of the country have been successful in increasing their income. He said that it was announced in the budget to set up 10,000 FPOs and the target is to achieve this by the year 2027. He said that under the leadership of Shri Modi, the Government of India has allocated Rs 6900 crore to achieve this goal.Shah said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come with up such concept that entire system from input to output, from manufacturing to processing and grading and from packaging to marketing and storage, that is the entire system from agricultural production to marketing should be under FPO. Shri Shah said that procurement of inputs, market information, dissemination of technology and innovation, aggregation of inputs for production, facilities for storage, drying, cleaning and grading have been done by FPOs. FPOs have also made arrangements for brand building as well as packaging, labeling and standardization processes, quality control, getting higher price to the farmer by associating with institutional buyers and corporate houses. FPOs havealso become the medium for dissemination of the schemes by informing the farmers about all the government schemes.

Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation called upon all the FPOs of the country to continue working in the same manner, but also to keep integrating PACS alongside. He said that a new hybrid model should be designed so that a completer system for information exchange, profit sharing and marketing based on the arrangement between the PACS and the FPO can be put in place. Shah said that the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has provided loans of over Rs. 127 crore to FPOsso far, which is in addition to Rs. 6,900 crores. In tribal districts, 922 FPOs have been formed for work related to the forest produce. This showcases the meticulous way in which the Modi government and Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, have moved forward. He said that the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab have done excellent work in the field of FPOs.

Amit Shah said that we have to establish amongst youth that agriculture is a profitable business, and it needs to be practiced in a modern way with proper marketing. He said that if such a confidence is instilled in the 12 crore farmers of the nation, then not only agricultural production will increase, but the contribution of agriculture to the GDP will increase. It will also make not only make these 12 crore farmers self-reliant but the nation will also become self-reliant. Shah said that Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has taken many initiatives in this regard and now through cooperative- FPO, the Modi government will move forward in the direction of making farmers into businessmen and entrepreneurs.

Minister of Cooperation said that during the tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the budget allocation for agriculture sector has increased by 5.6 times. He said that while in the year 2013-14, the agriculture budget was of Rs 21,000 crore, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, it has increased to Rs 1.15 lakh crore in the year 2023-24. He said that earlier the combined budget was Rs 21,000 crore, but now the budget of Ministry of Agriculture alone is Rs 1.15 lakh crore. This showcases the priority given by the Prime Minister and the government to agriculture.

Amit Shah said that the country produced 265 million tonnes of food grains in 2013-14 and 324 million tonnes in 2022-23. He said that some farmers want to talk about MSP and the government is ready to discuss it. Shri Shah said that there has been an increase of 55% in MSP of Paddy and 51% of MSP of Wheat in 10 years. He said that the present government under the leadership of Shri Modi is the first government after independence which has fixed at least50% more profit than the cost incurred by the farmers. He said that the Modi government has increased paddy procurement by 88% which means almost double paddy has been procured and wheat procurement has increased by around two-thirds, that is, 72%. He said that the work of purchasing 251 lakh metric tonnes of wheat has been done by the Modi government and the number of beneficiaries has almost doubled. He said that this shows how much work has been done by the Modi government for the welfare of the farmers. Along with this, organic farming has been promoted, 60 lakh farmers are covered through micro irrigation of 72 lakh hectares, created micro irrigation fund, created National Edible Oil Mission, created agricultural infrastructure fund of Rs .24000 crore, created fund for agricultural mechanization and the work of connecting about 1260 mandis through e-NAM has also been done by the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.

The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that there has been a radical change in the agriculture sector during the Modi government and now the Ministry of Cooperation has been created so that its benefits reach the farmers. He said that according to the mantra of cooperative, the profit goes to the one who does hard work in fields and this has been ensured by the Ministry of Cooperation.

Amit Shah said that the Modi government has done many things in the cooperative sector. Bylaws of PACS have been made which have been accepted by 26 states. Now, PACSwill be able to function as Dairy and fishermen committee, will also be able to run petrol pump, gas agency, CSC,cheaper medicine shop  and cheaper grain shop, will be able to do storage work. Not only this PACS will be able to perform commercial work in water management under Har Ghar Jal committee of the village. Shri Shah said that the Modi government has decided to link 22 different works with PACS. He said that unless PACS is strong, APACS can never be strong. If FPOs, PACS and Self Help Groups complement each other, then a new era of rural development and agricultural development will begin in the coming days.