Gujarat has become hub for production, export of potatoes: PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his home state Gujarat has become a hub for production and export of potatoes in the last two decades.
Addressing the third Global Potato Conclave via video conferencing, Modi said India became a leader in the production of food grains and food products due to farmers’ hard work and government policies.
India’s potato production increased by 20 per in the last decade while in Gujarat, it increased by 170 per cent, Modi said.
Policy decisions and modern facilities for irrigation helped in this growth, Modi said.
“While the country’s potato production rose 20 per cent in the last 11-12 years, it went up 170 per cent in Gujarat, mainly due to policy initiatives and modern and sufficient facilities for irrigation,” he said, adding schemes like ‘Sujalan Sufalam’ and ‘SAUNI Yojana’ brought irrigation facilities even to areas affected by drought.
Pending fertiliser subsidy hits ₹45,000 crore
Despite moving a good portion of its spending outside the Budget and funding it through Internal and Extra budgetary Resources (IEBR), the Centre has not been able to settle its key payments. Under IEBR, public sector enterprises borrow on their books to fund Central schemes.
Numbers seen by BusinessLine show that the pending fertiliser subsidy as on January 1, 2020, stood at a massive ₹45,000 crore — a level never seen before.
For 2019-20, the total amount allocated to fertiliser subsidy (urea plus other nutrients) was ₹79,996 crore. But this seems to have been exhausted by the Centre early in the year. Since the third week of August 2019, no payments have been made to urea manufacturers (domestic). The manufacturers of P&K (phosphatic and potassic) fertilisers have not received subsidy payment after November.
India’s January palm oil imports from Malaysia could hit 9-year low
India’s monthly palm oil imports from Malaysia could fall to the lowest level in nearly nine years in January as traders stopped buying the palm oil from Kuala Lumpur following informal instructions from New Delhi, traders and refiners told Reuters.
Lower imports by India, the world’s biggest palm oil importer, could weigh on Malaysian prices that have corrected nearly a tenth after hitting a three-year peak earlier this month.
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