The National Productivity Council (NPC) and the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) will evaluate the Government's soil health card scheme that seeks to cover 12 crore farmers across the country.
According to sources, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had asked the department to engage third parties for evaluating the progress made under this scheme that was launched in 2015. The move comes after a NITI Ayog study in which it has found that soil health card scheme seems to have been derailed by shoddy implementation as some states have hired private agencies, which have employed not properly qualified people (for example 10th pass youth) for testing the condition of the soil.
Sources said that the NPC and MANAGE have been roped in for this purpose. "Nodal officers of the rank of joint secretary in the ministry and additional nodal officers of director level are visiting states to monitor this scheme and other flagship programmes like crop insurance scheme", sources said.
The Niti Aayog in a study on the implementation of the project has found that states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar are lagging behind other states and need to speed up the process. The study has further pointed out that farmers are being given the cards without required prescription of what to do next after the test. Farmers have also expressed doubts over genuineness of the soil health card (SHC) because they are not provided with any registration number at the submission of the sample. "The glaring lapse was pointed out by the central government to states at a recent meeting of agriculture ministers of 13 states," sources said.
In 2015, the Government had introduced the Soil Health Card Scheme to evaluate fertility in all farm holdings across the country and issue cards to farmers regularly in a cycle of two years. The cards provide information to farmers on nutrient status of their soil as well as recommendations on appropriate dosage of nutrients to be used to boost soil health.
Initially, the government had targeted to issue cards to 14 crore farmers but now it will be issued to 12 crore farmers as states revised the data based on 2011 census. So far, soil health cards have been issued to over 9 crore farmers across the country. As many as 16 states like Karnataka, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra have done 100 per cent.