Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Animal Husbandry, Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare Departments, Atal Dulloo, today emphasized upon heads of all the allied departments to work expeditiously on formulation of annual action plans for all the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) to ensure timely release and utilization of funds in the Union Territory.ACS was reviewing the progress achieved under these schemes by the respective line departments while chairing a meeting held in this regard.Directors of Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Sheep Husbandry of both the divisions, Director Sericulture and Command Area Development besides other officers and officials of these departments participated in the meeting.
ACS enjoined upon the officers to designate the nodal officers in each of the department who would monitor and follow up release of funds from the central government besides timely submission of Utilization Certificates. He directed the Directors of Finance and Planning of each department to coordinate with field offices regarding plan formulation, timely submission for approval, regular monitoring and registration of expenditure as per the approved action plan.Dulloo asked the officers to accelerate sponsorship process of all the projects under NABARD.
He also asked them to work for extension of Saffron Mission and PARVAZ for overall benefit of farmers in J&K.He asked the officers to work towards enhancing the income of small and marginal farmers who constitute about 90% of farming community in the UT. He emphasized the need of replacing the traditional practices and agricultural input material by new varieties so as to exponentially increase returns for these marginal farmers. In this regard, he also made a mention of collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
It was informed that an amount of Rs 38.34 crore has been spent by different wings of AP&FW department under CSSs including NMSA, PMFBY, NMAET, NFSM, PMKSY and others till March, 2022. In addition, an amount of Rs 7.50 crore has been spent by the department under NABARD sponsored projects in the UT.Similarly, an amount of Rs 13.70 crore has been expended on Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) while Rs 66.70 crore have been incurred under PM Development Plan (PMDP).