Haryana to spend over Rs 100 cr on agri projects

Haryana has planned to spend a sum of over Rs 104 crore on three major agricultural related projects during the current financial year under ‘Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna’. The investment will be made for increasing the production and productivity of crops, promotion of farm mechanism and conservation of natural resources in the state.

According to an Agriculture Department spokesman, the three major projects would include providing subsidy on distribution of certified seeds of wheat, promotion of resource conserving technology and on-farm water management.

The amount of Rs 18 crore would be spent on providing subsidy on distribution of certified seeds of wheat, covering all the districts of the state under the project except those which were covered under National Food Security Mission. This would increase the seed replacement rate, which ultimately improves the production and productivity of the crops. About 360,000 farmers would benefit from this, including 18,000 women farmers and 36,000 farmers belonging to scheduled castes. Nearly 360,000 hectares of area would be covered under this project.

A sum of Rs 75 crore would also be spent for on-farm water management project. Under the project, assistance to the farmers would be provided for laying underground pipes and installation of sprinkle irrigation system. Digital monitoring of ground water depth and quality would also be carried out under the project.

The intensive farming and rice-wheat rotation over a prolonged period in some areas had caused degradation of natural resources. Hence, there was a need to conserve natural resource-base, particularly soil and water and to promote resource conserving implements in a big way.

The spokesman said there had been constant decline of water table in the districts of Karnal, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Panipat, Sonipat and Yamunanagar, where wheat-paddy was the dominant cropping sequence. Assistance of 50 per cent of the total cost of laying underground pipes or a maximum of Rs 60,000 per beneficiary would be provided. An amount of Rs 40 crore would be incurred to cover 40,000 hectares during the current year for this purpose.

The two districts, Karnal and Kurukshetra, with over-exploitation of ground water and districts Rohtak and Jhajjar, where water logging and quality problem persisted would be taken up on pilot bases for digital monitoring of the groundwater depth and quality. One digital Data Logger would be installed on Piezometer at block-level under the scheme. This would not only help in monitoring groundwater but would also help the conjunctive use of ground water for reclamation of saline and Alkali soils which would ultimately lead to the increase in crop productivity. An amount of Rs 75 lakh would be spent for installation of 21 digital Data Loggers in all the 21 blocks of the four districts of Karnal, Kurukshetra, Rohtak and Jhajjar.