Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 15: Minister for Agriculture, Ghulam Hassan Mir today said that Government has launched multipronged strategies to promote agriculture and its allied sectors on scientific lines and all the resources are being pooled to give fillip to production and productivity.
Replying to the discussion on demand of grants of his department, the Minister said that the department has shifted its focus from the cultivation of food grains to total diversification in agriculture produce and high income generating crops like fruits, flowers, vegetables, medicinal plants and allied activities like sericulture have been incentivized and encouraged. This will increase agriculture income and help to generate gainful employment in farm sector, he added.
Stating that present Coalition Government has given special focus to this important sector by exempting tax on most of the agriculture inputs for the benefit of farmers, he said that to make agriculture and its allied sectors profitable, thrust has been given to introduction of latest agri-techniques and use of farm machinery in farm sector to lower the production cost. “In this direction Kissan meals-cum-Farm machinery exhibition are being held at district level in first phase and now directions have been passed to conduct such melas at Panchayat level to make farmers aware about latest techniques and its utilization at their doorstep”, he added.
The Minister said that first time a mechanism has been adopted for close coordination between research and extension departments of SKUAST with agriculture and its allied sectors to percolate the benefit of new crop and fruit plant research to common farmers.
With the strenuous efforts of Agriculture Department Seed Replacement Rate (SRR) of the State has gone up over the last four years from 10% to 24.78% in paddy and from 10.79% to 29.77% in wheat and efforts are on to reach the level of 33%, the national benchmark, Mr Mir said.
Stating that saffron is heritage cash crop of the J&K, the Minister said that an ambitious National Mission for the rejuvenation of saffron with an investment of Rs 372.18 crore has been launched. “It is expected that production of saffron would double in the State by the end of four years. Under the mission more and more areas are being covered under the saffron cultivation and SKUAST-K has been asked to find the feasibility of other areas in Valley where this heritage crop would be cultivated for boosting the rural economy”, he added.
Mr Mir said that Department of Agriculture, Jammu has taken up market intervention for the last two years to prevent distress sale of their food-grains produce by farmers and facilitated an all-time high procurement of 92,499.45 quintals of wheat grains and 36,118.95 quintals of paddy grains by FCI with the active involvement of the CAPD Department.
“The Chakroi Seed Multiplication Farm is being developed and upgraded at a cost of Rs 30 crore in Jammu Division for production of high quality Basmati seeds of traditional variety of R S Pura. In order to further increase the production/ productivity of local Basmati variety of R S Pura, measures are also being taken under various Centrally Sponsored Schemes like Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, National Food Security Mission and Macro Management of Agriculture”, the Minister informed the House, adding “so far an amount of Rs 11.5 crore stands utilized on this account”.
Underlining the importance of horticulture in boosting the rural economy, Mr Mir said that there is a need to focus on infrastructure for post harvesting as it is only way to compete with international market, adding “the State Government is providing funding for creation of post-harvest infrastructure”.
“The Kashmir valley is proud to export 90% apple requirement of the country’s population and it is our duty to launch latest post-harvest projects under private and public sector to full fill the demand of the market which would help the growers as well”, he said, adding “three cold stores are functioning in Valley and four more are in pipeline. The turnover on account of export of fruits of the State has reached a level of Rs 4200 crore as on date”.
Underscoring the need to develop the floriculture on commercial lines, the Minister asked the youth to opt it as a profitability activity as the department has adopted commercial floriculture which include providing of financial and technical assistance and development of post-harvest facilities and marketing channels for the benefit of the growers.
Earlier, 15 members including M Y Tarigami, Prof Chaman Lal Gupta, Irfan Shah, Hakeem Mohammad Yasin, G M Saroori, T Namgyal, Prof Gharu Ram, Javid Ahmad Dar, Ch Sukhnandan Kumar, Harshdev Singh, Aijaz Ahmad Jan, Ashok Kumar, Ashwani Kumar, Charanjeet Singh and Er Abdul Rashid took part in the discussion. The House, later, passed the grants by a voice vote.
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