Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Sunday announced that it will disburse Rs 313.61 crore in the next five years to support the farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) in the state.
The decision was taken at the Odisha Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister in a virtual mode from Kyoto in Japan today.
The Cabinet decided that the state government will distribute a sum of Rs 313.61 crore between 2023-24 and 2027-28 fiscals to implement the ‘Support to Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)’ in the state.
The scheme has been introduced with the objective to provide support to more than 1,000 FPOs in Odisha in the next five years. At least three lakh farmers will be benefitted from the scheme, a press statement issued by the government said today.
The scheme aims to support the FPO ecosystem in the state through credit linkage and financial, technical and infrastructural assistance. The scheme will market linkage easily and present better income opportunities to the farmers in the state.
The scheme will help farmers obtain remunerative prices for the products ensuring the socio-economic development of small and marginal farmers.
It objectively aims at providing an incremental income of Rs 2000 per month per farmer member of FPOs. To achieve this objective, the scheme will effectuate interventions such as Promotional Campaign of FPOs, Operational and handholding support, Capacity building and industry exposure, access to finance, Marketing Support and export linkage, Management and Governance support to attract/retain professionals for FPO management, establish center of excellence for FPOs, Single windows system for FPOs, facilitation of education and research on FPOs, Performance-linked incentives to CBBOs/Producer Organizations Promoting Institutions (POPIs) and allocation of land on need basis to encourage value addition and processing, amongst others.
A State-level committee (SLC) under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment will monitor the implementation of the scheme every quarter. The Project Management Unit (PMU) under the Directorate of Horticulture will take the responsibility of implementation of the scheme in accordance with the Annual Action Plan.
