Himachal Agriculture Minister Sujan Singh Pathania on Tuesday said the State would complete the task of providing soil health cards to the farmers of the State under the ‘Soil Health Cards Scheme’, within a year. The scheme was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February, this year.The Minister said a target had been fixed to provide soil health cards to the farmers in three years under the scheme but Himachal was the only State to take the challenge of providing these cards within a year. Pathania said during the year 2015-16, Rs165 lakh would be spent on this programme and as per annual action plan for the scheme, 69,635 soil samples would be drawn with GPS system. For this, grid of 2.5 hectare in irrigated and 10 hectare in rainfed areas would be identified to draw one sample from each grid. The soil health cards would be issued to all the farmers of the grid based upon soil test report.
The Minister said the GPS based 27854 soil samples would be drawn and analyzed in Kharif 2015 season and 41781 in Rabi 2015-16 season and soil heath cards would be made available to the farmers of the State along with nutrient recommendation for the crops to be grown in Kharif and Rabi seasons. “The progress of the scheme was being reviewed on weekly basis and through web based Soil Health Card portal. Till date, 19530 soil samples have been drawn in the State,” Pathania said.The department had set up 11 soil testing labs and had also deployed four mobile soil testing labs. Three more mobile labs were being procured this year for which Rs225 lakh had been earmarked.