In a bid to fund its agriculture diversification program across the State, Punjab Government has chalked out a blue print for implementation of various schemes and projects at a cost of nearly Rs217 crore under the Rashtriya Krishi Vigyan Yojana (RKVY).
The decision was taken by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in a meeting with the senior functionaries of the Agriculture, Soil conservation, Animal Husbandry, Dairy, Fisheries and Horticulture departments on Friday.
CM has asked these departments to chalk out a detailed strategy to ensure supply of agriculture inputs through primary agriculture societies not only to its members but also to the farmers based in the villages.
A committee under the chairmanship of Financial Commissioner Development (FCD) with Director Agriculture and Markfed managing director as its members was also constituted to find out ways and means for purchase of fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, etc directly from the companies and make it available to the farmers at affordable rates.
Badal, during the meeting, also approved to constitute a committee headed by Punjab Farmer’s Commission’s chairman including Financial Commissioner Development and ludhiana’s Punjab Agricultural University’s vice-chancellor to identify high yielding varieties of maize initially to be sown over an area of 50,000 hectares under the much needed crop diversification program.
The CM also impressed upon the need to set up farmers’ training schools at district headquarters for effective implementation of diversification program. Besides, he also pressed for a State-of-the-art water management center to be setup to explore all possibilities of groundwater conservation as well as modern techniques to get maximum yield of crops with less water intake.
He also asked the top brass of the Agriculture, Soil conservation, Animal Husbandry, Dairy, Fisheries and Horticulture departments to evolve a multi-pronged strategy to have better synergy amongst these departments for the promotion of allied farming in a big way, which was the only way to bail out the beleaguered farming community from the rut of conventional crops.
In order to provide best veterinary services to dairy farmers, Badal asked the Financial Commissioner Animal Husbandry to prepare a time bound action plan for ensuring a veterinary hospital.