Pulses, oilseeds to be target for ensuing rabi season

Govt to issue soil heath cards, higher seed subsidy and increase use of biofertiliser

The government has proactively taken some new initiatives for the ensuing Rabi season 2014-15. It has been decided to keep oilseeds and pulses as the main target for the season.

It has decided to allocate higher subsidy on allocation of seeds for replanting in ensuing Rabi season where crops have damaged during kharif season.

To this effect, the National Seeds Corporation (NSC) has been directed to distribute seed of wheat and gram on subsidized rate to the farmers in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka directly without routing any proposal to the ministry of agriculture.

It has been clarified that seeds of varieties of wheat notified during last 10 years and gram varieties during last 15 years are the only ones allowed for distribution. Under this programme, NSC could distribute seeds within the overall target set for individual states. Last season, the government had increased the rate of subsidy for bio fertilizers under NFSM-Pulses from Rs 1 00 per hectare to Rs 300 per hectare.

Total estimation of the seed availability for the ensuing Rabi season, all crops except for Bengal gram and lentil have surplus availability of seeds. There has been a new trend in the usage of fertiliser which has been observed by the ministry. While assessed requirement of urea has come down from 171 lakh tons to 164 lakh tons, use of bio fertilisers has been consistently increased by 62% from 2011-12 (40,324 mn tonne) to 65,528 mn tonne.

According to officials, several bio fertilisers have reduced the dose of nitrogen Phosphate and potash fertilisers by 25%. In order to address the issue of imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers, the Government proposes to steer Bhartiya Paramparagat Kristi Vikash Pariyojana which aims to promote use of organic fertilizers and develop potential markets for these products in the country.

According to sources, the government wants to address the problem of deteriorating soil health in a Mission mode and has formulated a Programme to provide every farmer with a Soil Health Card. It has been targeted to issue 14 crore cards by the year 2016-17. There may be a pilot plan in this Rabi season, albeit nothing has been finalised in this direction. 

Besides, the pulses programme under the National Food Security Mission has been enhanced by additional allocation of RS 300 crores and to include north eastern states and hilly states. In these states, centre share in the subsidy will be enhanced from 75% to 90% and subsidy for transportation of planting material of oil palm is also being considered for the north east states.

It has been advised to expand the area in pulses by increasing the area under rice fallow like black gram and green gram in AP, Odisha Telangana. Intercropping of pulse crop has been suggested in many states in between main crops like with cotton in Gujarat, sugarcane in Maharashtra etc, Other critical intervention have been suggested lie seed replacement strategy , varieties replacement strategy etc.