Taking a fresh initiative, the State Government has decided to launch 30 ‘Krishi Raths’ (Agriculture-Chariots) to spread awareness among farmers across the State so that they could be made aware of the latest agricultural technologies as well as Government schemes being run in the State. State Agriculture Minister Randhir Kumar Singh, during a meeting, called on Wednesday to chalk out the future course of action for providing relief to the farmers also directed the Deputy Commissioners to immediately provide relief to them.
“In order to make the farmers aware of the latest technology and tit-bits of agriculture, as many as 30 agriculture chariots will be put on work in all the five divisions of Jharkhand on May 25, one of them will be flagged off by CM Raghubar Das in Ranchi,” the minister said.
The chariot will be accompanied by an agriculture scientist and equipped with soil testing equipments who will visit the villages, giving them suggestions to increase their produce by adopting latest technologies, the minister told.
“A help card will also be distributed among the farmers making them aware of the schemes and programmes launched by the State Government. Use of organic fertilizers will also be promoted through this programme,” said Singh.
In the wake of heavy rainfall and hailstorm, which occurred recently on Tuesday the minister also directed Deputy Commissioner’s across the State to immediately provide relief to the farmers against the damage caused by it.
“Although relief work is already on by the State in the rain affected districts, I have asked the DCs to make a fresh assessment of the damage caused by heavy rain and hailstorm providing immediate relief to the farmers,” the minister said. Chief Minister Raghubar Das taking a serious note of the problem has also asked to provide immediate relief to the farmers, he added.
Furthermore, it was also decided to make the department fully on-line making it transparent and accessible for the general masses. Similarly, a special drive will be launched to connect more and more people with the state owned Mother Dairy-Medha Milk.
“As many as 28,000 more families across the State will be connected with production, distribution and sale of Medha milk,” Singh said. Under this scheme, dairy farm with a capacity of one lakh liters will be set up at Hotwar in Ranchi while the capacity of Deoghar farm will be increased from 10,000 to 20,000 liter, he added.
Similarly, Jamshedpur and Palamu will also get one dairy farm each with 30,000 and 10,000 capacities respectively and the dumped ones in Dhanbad and Giridih will be made functional again.
Goshala’s on the other hand, will be promoted giving more facilities to them filling up the vacant posts in them very soon.
In order to promote fisheries and providing more facilities to the fishermen in the state, 2000 houses will be made for them costing Rs75,000 for each of the house, besides connecting 86,000 trained fishermen with group insurance of Rs2 lakh, for which the premium will be paid by the State Government.