PM Modi to announce farmers welfare schemes worth Rs 3,400 crore in Uttarakhand's Rudrapur

In the run-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a marathon rally spree. On Thursday, he will visit Rudrapur in Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district where he is slated to announce schemes worth Rs 3,400 crore to boost cooperatives and farmers. He will launch the State Integrated Cooperative Development Project and distribute loan cheques to select beneficiaries of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Farmers Welfare Scheme. Under this scheme, multi-purpose loans of up to Rs 1 lakh will be made available to the farmers at a very low interest rate of 2 per cent. The scheme is an important step towards the goal of doubling the income of farmers in Uttarakhand by 2022.

It will help in checking the forced migration from Uttarakhand by providing adequate support to those involved agricultural and allied activities. Union minister of agriculture of farmer's welfare Radha Mohan Singh is also slated to be present on the occasion.

PM Modi will also hand over the cheque of Rs 100 crore to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, towards the first instalment of the fund under this project, transferred by National Cooperative Development Cooperation to the state government.

Around one lakh people are expected to attend the public meeting in Rudrapur, state BJP president Ajay Bhatt claimed.

With the Lok Sabha elections just a few months away, Modi’s visit is going to be significant as it would enthuse party workers in the state, he said. The BJP faces the challenge of retaining all the five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand against a resurgent Congress which registered victories in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in the Assembly polls held recently.

PM Modi was expected to visit Kedarpuri earlier, but due to erratic weather conditions and snow-clad peaks in Kedarnath, his programme was changed. The Prime Minister earlier visited Uttarakhand on November 7, 2018 to celebrate Diwali with Indian Army jawans and ITBP personnel at Harsil and before that on October 7, 2018 to address the ‘Destination Uttarakhand: Investors’ Summit 2018’, in Dehradun.

On February 2, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah addressed over 15,000 party workers of Tehri and Haridwar constituencies.