Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday inaugurated 40 new soil testing laboratories set up at the block level in the state. The soil testing labs have been set up under the State Government’s ‘Har Khet Swasth Khet’.
In the first phase, soil testing of 25 lakh acres of land will be done this year through these laboratories.
Union Minister of State, Krishan Pal Gujjar, State Ministers, MPs and MLAs also joined the programme through video conferencing.
After the virtual inauguration, the Chief Minister said that the State Government is leaving no stone unturned to realize Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of doubling the income of farmers. For this, soil testing laboratories have been set up in the state so that the farmers can be made aware about which crop should be sown based on the soil health, he said.
The Chief Minister said that in the next three years, the soil testing of the entire 75 lakh acres of agricultural land in Haryana will be done.
He said that Haryana has made a significant contribution to the national food grains pool. During the green revolution period, the farmers of Haryana fulfilled the shortage of food grains in the country by producing the grains in abundance.
Today paying attention to the quantity as well as quality of food grains production has become the need of the hour, he added.
Calling upon the farmers to move towards organic and natural farming, the Chief Minister said that by doing so, farmers would play an important role in the prevention of diseases due to food products.
It was informed that during this financial year, two soil testing laboratories located at Panchkula and Karnal have been proposed to get accreditation from National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). With this, Haryana will be the first state in India to have NABL accreditation of land testing laboratories.
EARN WHILE YOU LEARN
The Chief Minister directed the officers of the Agriculture Department to make a comprehensive plan to ensure participation of senior secondary schools and college students in the work of soil testing so that the students can earn along with their studies.
He said that students engaged in this work will be given an honorarium of Rs 40 per sample. It was informed during the programme that last year, 115 science teachers and Assistant Professors of schools and colleges have been imparted soil testing training at CSSRI Karnal and HAU Hisar. 50 small soil laboratories have already been established in Government Senior Secondary Schools and 65 more such laboratories are being set up in schools and colleges.