(a) the number of beneficiaries entitled to get benefits through Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) in the last year;
(b) whether PSF is helping farmers to get the price of particular commodities, if so, the details thereof; and
(c) whether the farmers of West Bengal are benefitting through PSF, if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
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(a) to (c): As per the information received from Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA), Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India, Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) was set up to tackle price volatility in some agri- horticultural commodities viz. onion, potato and pulses to protect the interest of consumers for which commodities are intended to be procured from farmers/farmer’s associations in the country including that of West Bengal to the extent possible at the time of harvesting and stored for regulated release during lean season to help bring down their prices.
Interest free advances from the PSF corpus may be made both to Central Agencies and to State level corpus. The State level corpus is demand driven i.e. created based on proposal from States/UTs as per guidelines with a sharing pattern between Government of India and States in the ratio of 50:50 , which is 75:25 in case the North Eastern States.
Government of West Bengal has set up State level PSF corpus to undertake market intervention operations as and when required. Central Government has contributed its matching share of Rs. 2.5 crore towards the State level PSF of West Bengal.
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