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Seeds of labour: Women sow rice at Bodam
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Jamshedpur, June 11: Farmers in four select blocks of East Singhbhum will play a role in bringing paddy revolution to eastern India.
Around 8,500 farmers from Patamda, Bodam, Mosaboni and Potka blocks of East Singhbhum will benefit from Bringing Green Revolution in Eastern India (BGREI), a sub-scheme of the Centre’s Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), which will kick off within a week.
In Jharkhand, all the districts barring the seven districts covered by National Food Security Mission (rice) — Hazaribagh, West Singhbhum, Ranchi, Ramgarh, Khunti, Gumla and Simdega — have been included in the scheme.
State BGREI officer Jata Shanker Choudhary said the main objective was to enhance rice productivity in the eastern Indian states.
“So far, the country has been relying only on north-western states for meeting its rice needs. As part of this policy, even the eastern Indian states are expected to be a food (read rice) surplus zone. The scheme has already been implemented in Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and eastern UP,” he said.
The state agriculture department has even conducted demonstrations to spread awareness among farmers in the four chosen blocks of East Singhbhum.
“We have selected 1,000 hectares for the scheme in all the four blocks of the district,” said district agriculture officer Arun Kumar.
As part of the scheme, the state will provide 40 per cent of the seeds for free to a farmer carrying out cropping in one hectare. The remaining 60 per cent of seeds will be given with 50 per cent subsidy.
The sops do not end here. Nearly all the micronutrients and chemicals required for advanced farming such as zinc sulphate and other fertilisers will be provided by the state government.
This apart, each farmer will get Rs 1,500 for deep ploughing per hectare of cropping and similarly Rs 1,500 for transplanting.
Farmers will also be offered advanced agriculture tools such as power tiller, rotavators, cono weeder, power weeder and thresher by the district agriculture department on subsidised rates.
“We will be giving hybrid seeds and encourage normal cropping in all the four blocks. Farmers have shown keen interest during the demonstration and we hope with the good monsoon forecast the region will have a bumper crop,” said Kumar.
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