Context:

• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed to launch Operation Greens in his speech while presenting the Union Budget 2018-19 in Lok Sabha today. Jaitley proposed that it would be launched with an allocation of Rs 500 crore on the lines of Operation Flood.

But what is Operation Green all about?

• Operation Greens aims to promote farmer producers organisations, agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management. The operation aims to aid farmers and help control and limit the erratic fluctuations in the prices of onions, potatoes and tomatoes.
• Union Government proposes to launch an ‘Operation Greens’ on the lines of ‘Operation Flood’.
• ‘Operation Greens’ shall promote Farmer Producers Organizations (FPOs), agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management.
• The idea behind Operation Greens is to double the income of farmers by the end of 2022. Operation is essentially a price fixation scheme that aims to ensure farmers are given the right price for their produce.
• The MSP regulation has a key role to play here. The announcement to set minimum support price of all kharif crops at 1.5 times the cost of production will increase the farmers’ income and for consumers, tax incentives will be given under Operation Greens.
• The government aims to focus on basic ingredients and not on additional commodities in agriculture.
• Operation Greens will work to increase demand in the economy as well with its demand forecasting model.
• To help in the structural and infrastructure part of the scheme, as many as 470 agriculture market committee (APMCs) promoted markets will now be connected to the e-nam platform while the government will help in development of 22,000 agricultural markets.

Source:IE