Farmers should make use of the State Government schemes, especially those that help in conserve use of water, Principal Secretary, Agriculture, Gagandeep Singh Bedi said here on Saturday at the Farmers’ Day function organised by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
The Government wanted the farmers to go in for drip irrigation. The Central Government gave 40 % subsidy to farmers switching over to drip irrigation but the Tamil Nadu Government gave 100 % subsidy to small and medium farmers for drip irrigation and for big farmers, it gave 75 % subsidy.
To encourage farmers to switch over, the Government had sanctioned ₹ 803 crore, Mr. Bedi said.
This was very much required because the State was water-deficient and only last year had witnessed drought of such a scale that was unseen in the last 140 years. Even in disbursing drought relief, the State had done well vis-a-vis neighbouring states, he said and pointed out that while the disbursement was around ₹200 - 300 crore there, in Tamil Nadu, the Government had thus far given ₹3,060 crore.
After the Central Government ushered the Goods and Services Tax, the farmers switching over to drip irrigation had to initially pay 18 % tax and now 12 % tax on drip irrigation equipment. To encourage farmers to easily move to drip irrigation, the State Government had decided that it would bear even the GST.
With those measures the Government hoped to cover as much as 70,000 ha under drip irrigation.
Another step that the Government wanted the farmers to adopt was direct sowing of paddy and not raising nurseries. This would lead to 25 % water conservation. The third was collective farming, where farmers could come together in groups and those farmers groups could again join to form farmer producers group. This would help bring down the cost of inputs, he added.
Agriculture Minister R. Doraikannu said the Government had allotted ₹2,247 crore towards disaster relief, ₹3,201 crore towards crop insurance and ₹100 crore for ‘kudimaramathu’ scheme. It had also enrolled 15.37 lakh farmers under the crop insurance scheme and helped them get insurance benefits ₹3,021 crore.
For the current year, the Government had fixed 100 lakh metric tonne as the food production target, he added.
Municipal Administration and Water Supply Minister S.P. Velumani also spoke about the Government’s various initiatives to help farmers. Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Vice Chancellor K. Ramasamy said various scientific and technological interventions in the recent past had helped double food productions from 65 - 75 lakh metric tonne to 138 lakh metric tonne.
The Ministers and officials later released new crop varieties, launched mobile application and distributed prizes to farmers.
