In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs announced the formation of 10,000 new Farmer Producer Organisation (FPOs) to ensure economies of scale for farmers over the next five years.
“There is a total budgetary provision of Rs 4,496 crore for five years (2019-20 to 2023-24) with a further committed liability of Rs 2,369 crore for the period from 2024-25 to 2027-28 towards handholding of each FPO for five years from its aggregation and formation” Thakur said.
Shri Thakur further stated that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has reported that currently there are around 6,000 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) existing in the country.
Out of these FPOs, NABARD has promoted 4,317 FPOs, which include 2,154 FPOs supported out of Producers Organization Development and Upliftment Corpus (PRODUCE) Fund.
During 2014-15, the Government had created PRODUCE Fund with a corpus of Rs 200 crore in NABARD for the promotion of 2,000 FPOs in the country. Against the target of 2,000 FPOs, NABARD has sanctioned 2,154 FPOs as on 31.10.2019, informed the Minister.