Amid the ongoing farmers’ protest, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday met and took decisions related to agriculture, telecom and power sectors. Announcing the decisions, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the Cabinet will provide subsidy on 60 lakh tonne sugar which will benefit five crore farmers and five lakh workers. The money will directly be credited to the bank accounts of the farmers. “For the last two and three years, there have been a surplus in production and therefore the price has gone down,” Javadekar said. Farmers will get three credits in the coming days, the minister added.
The food ministry had proposed Rs 3,600 crore subsidy for exports of 60 lakh tonnes of sugar in the marketing year 2020-21 (October-September).
In another important announcement, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said auction for the next round of spectrum allocation has also been approved by the Cabinet. The last auction was held in 2016.
“Cabinet approves Auction of spectrum in 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz frequency bands, for validity period of 20 yrs. A total of 2251.25 MHz is being offered with total valuation of Rs 3,92,332.70 crores,” the minister said.
The Union Cabinet meeting, held via video conferencing, started at 11.25am.
The last Cabinet meeting was held on December 9, where the cabinet gave a mod for Aatmanirbhat Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) to boost the employment in the formal sector and incentive the creation of new employment opportunities during COVID-19 recovery phase under Aatmanirbhar Bharat Package 3.0.