Director Agriculture Kashmir today chaired a meeting to review the progress of various State and Centrally sponsored schemes for current fiscal and implementation of special projects for promotion of Agriculture and its allied sectors in Kashmir valley.Joint Director Agriculture Inputs, Joint Director Engineering, Mushroom Coordinator, Divisional Officer and all Chief Agriculture Officers attended the meeting.The Director said that there will be the transparent mode of allotment of funds under all State and Central schemes. He emphasized upon officers for judicious use of funds allotted under various schemes on the ground level.The Director Agriculture highlighted initiatives under vegetable cluster programmes taken in Districts Srinagar, Budgam, Anantnag and Pulwama, wherein Rs 5 lakh have been released to each cluster respectively.All the Chief Agriculture Officers were instructed to identify at least one block in their respective districts which are adversely affected by the climate change so that the same can be bought under the Climate Resilient Aggregation Project. The meeting was informed that in the district Budgam 25 villages have been identified for climate resilient change wherein baseline survey is under process.
The officers informed the Director that the geo-tagging of the assets is about to complete in all the districts. The Director emphasized to speed-up the progress on Soil Health Cards for 100% achievement as the deadline has been marked for August 8 to upload the information on the web portal.He stressed on the officers to take necessary steps for revival of sick vermin-compost units in their respective districts to give the boost to organic farming. He instructed that there should be cent percent coverage under Kisan Credit Cards and every farmer must be covered under the scheme.He asked officers to reach out to the grass root level and gear up the field functionaries so that benefits of all the schemes reache to the farmer which in turn can increase the production and productivity and raise the economic standard of the farming community.Meanwhile, Chief Agriculture Officer Kupwara informed the meeting that 200 kanals of Hachimarg village has been adopted under tomato cultivation, wherein latest technology is being used and controlled vegetable cultivation will be undertaken to give a boost to the economic standards of the native farmers.It was said that work is underway to promote honey production in the district under Chief Minister’s Apiculture Development Project.