After declaring a dedicated day for yoga, the Centre has decided to celebrate Soil Health Card Day to commemorate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship programme – soil health cards (SHC).
With this, the scheme which was launched to check <g data-gr-id="36">excessive</g> use of fertilisers and save money for <g data-gr-id="37">farmers,</g> has reached to another level as the Modi government has fixed December 5 for observing soil health card day.
Explaining the objective behind fixing a day for soil health card, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Radha Mohan Singh said: “We understand the challenges in the agriculture sector and those faced by farmers. That’s why, we are issuing soil health cards to farmers, which will check <g data-gr-id="33">excessive</g> use of fertilisers. It will save money for them.”
Singh added that with soil health cards, farmers will have an idea about seeds, nutrients and other inputs. “The issuance of soil health cards will boost both <g data-gr-id="28">productivity</g> of crops and income of farmers,” the Minister said.
Taking credit for the initiative, the Union minister said: “The erstwhile UPA government had issued a meagre Rs 72 crore for testing the soil quality, but when the Modi government came to power in 2014, we allocated Rs 88 crore for 2014-15 and announced to set up 100 moving soil testing laboratories.”
“Soil health cards have information on nutrients and other physical parameters. The cards help farmers in improving the soil’s quality and get a better yield,” Singh told Millennium Post, adding that the total fund of Rs 568 crore has been allocated to different states under soil health card mission.
Replying to a question on states objecting to Rs 10 given for sample collection, Singh said: “That is no more an issue as Madhya Pradesh is actively collecting samples at this rate only. But if a state realises that it is not feasible for them, they can utilise funds from other heads for collecting samples.”
Soil health card is a printed document, which will be given to farmers once in three years for their land holding. The target for sample collection this year (2015-16) has been increased from 83 lakh to 100 lakh.
Though some states have already achieved above 60 per cent target, the minister stressed on achieving 100 per cent target by March 2016.
So far, Andhra Pradesh has taken the lead in the disbursement of soil health cards to farmers, while Tamil Nadu and Punjab exceeded targets for collection of soil samples during the <g data-gr-id="27">kharif</g> season.