The Covid-19 pandemic had little impact on the Agriculture sector and it functioned smoothly, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said.
He said to ensure easy availability of funds, the Government has issued 2.6 crore Kisan Credit Cards with a sanction limit of Rs 2.77 lakh crore till November this year.
The Centre has taken all necessary measures to ensure smooth operation of agriculture related activities, said a senior officer of the Agriculture Ministry here on Saturday.
During the lockdown, the Government had exempted farming and allied activities were exempted. “Seed, pesticide, fertilizer dealers and other input related activities were allowed to open for making inputs available to the farmers,” the Agriculture Minister said.
He said inter and intra state movement of farm machinery specially combine harvesters was facilitated. As a result both harvesting activities of the Rabi crop and sowing activities of Summer crop took place in a systematic manner, he stated.
On the availability of credit for agriculture activities, the Ministry said during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic, Government extended the date of renewal of short term agriculture loan for six months, which had become due or would have become due from March last year.
Similarly during the second wave also, the Government extended the date of renewal of the short term agriculture loan by six months from March this year with commensurate benefit of 2 per cent interest subvention and 3 per cent prompt repayment incentive up to extended date, the Minister said.