Hry’s ‘Mera Paani, Meri Virasat’ helping to enhance agri produce

Chandigarh: It seems the Haryana Government is all set to fulfil its goal of increasing farmers’ income.

Ankur Kumar, a farmer from Kurukshetra’s Ban village with four acres of land, started vegetable farming on three acres in paddy fields. He produced about 1,700 to 1,800 carats of tomatoes from one acre; due to which he made a record sale of vegetables worth Rs 13 lakh.

For this feat, Ankur credited Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. He said that he was inspired by the ‘Mera Pani-Meri Virasat’ scheme and he abandoned traditional farming and adopted vegetable farming. Drip irrigation was adopted for vegetables, which also saved water; reducing agricultural input and increasing income.

While understanding the significance of water conservation for future generations, Khattar gave the concept of the ‘Mera Pani-Meri Virasat’ scheme to the farmers of paddy-dominated districts; positive results of which are being seen at the ground level.

Seeded Rice in 2024

Under the ‘Mera Pani-Meri Virasat’ scheme, the officials prepared two major schemes, in which farmers opting for alternative crops like maize, millet and jowar instead of paddy would get an incentive of Rs 7,000 per acre and provision was made for financial assistance of Rs 4,000 per acre for direct-seeded rice (DSR) with zero tillage machine.

This decision of the Chief Minister brought very positive results. Earlier, the Chief Minister had started Kisan Samvad programmes to encourage the farmers of paddy-dominated districts to sow alternative crops instead of paddy to save water. As a result, farmers saved 31,500 crore litres of water by adopting the direct-seeded rice method on 72,000 acres during the Kharif season in 2022 and the state government gave an incentive amount of Rs 29.16 crore to such farmers.

With the increasing trend of the farmers, the Chief Minister in his budget speech has announced setting a target of bringing 2 lakh acres of the area under DSR during the year 2023-24. In view of the upcoming Kharif season 2023-24, after Bhiwani and Palwal districts, the Chief Minister has shifted his Jan Samvad programme to the paddy-dominated district Kurukshetra; where he will interact with the people in major villages from May 1 to 3.