Doubling farmers' income top priority for govt: Piyush Goyal

Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said doubling farmers' income is a "top priority" for the government along with introducing other welfare measures for the agriculturists.

"Farmers, farmers' welfare ... doubling their income has been a top priority for this government," Commerce and Industry Minister Goyal said speaking at an event of Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

It can be noted that the government in 2017 had assured that it is aiming to help double farmers' income by 2022, when the country completes 75 years of independence, through various policy interventions.


The government think tank NITI Aayog had come up with a report on the same with a roadmap to deliver on the promise by the end of FY23. As per experts, this would have required a 10.41 per cent increase in farmers' income every year.

Goyal also hit out at big tech firms who deploy sophisticated algorithms to ensure that consumers on e-commerce sites or other online mediums go to certain suppliers itself which are of choice to the platforms because they offer wider profit margins.

He said the ONDC initiative being steered by the government with help from the private sector will help the neighbourhood kirana or mom-and-pop stores who feel threatened by big tech firms like Amazon.

"Neighbourhood kirana shops will compete with modern, high profile shops and will be able to not only survive, but increase their incomes going forward," the minister said.

He said a beta version of ONDC was launched at a ceremony in Coimbatore, where some of the participants in the open-platform ecosystem have started to get a taste of the capabilities of the idea.

Once the interoperability of platforms becomes available on ONDC and consumers get the choice, we will be able to see the benefits of the newly conceived platforms accrue to everyone, Goyal said.

The minister said he also suggested the team behind ONDC to launch the platform on regional languages so that more people can benefit from it.