PM to lay foundation stone for Bundelkhand Expressway on Feb 29

New Delhi [India], Feb 27 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of Bundelkhand Expressway at Chitrakoot on Saturday, February 29.

He will also launch 10,000 Farmers Producer Organisations all over the country.

A PMO release said the expressway will supplement nodes of Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor announced by the government in February 2018.

It said India has a huge defence requirement including systems, ships, submarines, fighter aircraft, helicopters, weapons and sensors. The requirements are estimated at over USD 250 billion by 2025.

As part of measures to fulfil these requirements, the government had announced setting up of Defence Industrial Corridor in Uttar Pradesh during Investors Summit in February 2018 at Lucknow.

The corridor is being set up with six nodes initially. These are Lucknow, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Aligarh, Kanpur and Agra. Two of these nodes fall in Bundelkhand and the biggest cluster would be created at Jhansi.

Bundelkhand Expressway is being constructed by Uttar Pradesh government and will pass through Chitrakoot, Banda, Hamirpur and Jalaun.

This 209-km expressway will link Bundelkhand region to Delhi through Agra-Lucknow expressway and Yamuna expressway.

The release said it will play a vital role in the development of Bundelkhand region and is expected to benefit Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Jaloun, Oraiyah and Etawah districts.

The release said that uncultivated has been purchased in both Jhansi and Chitrakoot and the poor farmers of the region have benefitted from the move.

The release said that the Prime Minister will also launch 10,000 Farmers Producer Organisations all over the country at Chitrakoot.

Noting that 86 per cent of farmers are small and marginal with average land holdings in the country being less than 1.1 hectares, the release said these and landless farmers face tremendous challenges in accessing technology, quality seeds, fertilisers and pesticides apart from finance.

They also face tremendous challenges in marketing their produce.

The release said FPOs help in the collectivisation of small, marginal and landless farmers and gives them collective strength to deal with such issues.

The report on 'Doubling of Farmer's Income' (DFI) had recommended the formation of 7,000 FPOs by 2022 but the central government announced the creation of 10,000 new FPOs to ensure economies of scale for farmers over the next five years, the release said.

In Union Budget for the coming fiscal, the government had proposed adopting a cluster approach for horticulture produce through the strategy of "one district one product" for promoting value addition, marketing and export.

The new scheme `Formation and Promotion of Farmer Produce Organizations (FPOs)' has "clear strategy and committed resources" to form and promote 10,000 new FPOs, the release added. (ANI)