Patna: The plan to develop organic corridors in Bihar is set to witness a major expansion in 2018-19.

Having been launched on a limited scale last fiscal (2017-18) with an aim to promote organic farming in areas located along the banks of the Ganga and in villages located along the Daniawan-Biharsharif road, the plan will witness inclusion of new districts this fiscal.

"In the previous fiscal, we had launched this scheme in villages in Patna, Nalanda, Bhagalpur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Lakhisarai, Khagaria and Munger and some villages located along the Daniawan-Biharsharif road. This year, we will include villages of Buxar, Bhojpur, Rohtas, Kaimur, Gaya and Aurangabad districts," a senior official of the agriculture department told The Telegraph and added that the scope of the scheme had been widened and even those areas which are not located along river Ganga are being included. According to the expansion plan, after covering the new districts, the area to be covered under the organic corridor scheme will be 25,000 acres, whereas it stood at 2,000 acres in the launch year. The plan is part of the agricultural roadmap for 2017-22.

Sharing details about the steps being taken to earmark the areas where the organic corridor scheme would be introduced in the current fiscal, the official said: "The field officials have already started identifying the villages, where this scheme would be rolled out and we hope to complete the process in two months."

The official didn't chart out a time-frame when his attention was drawn towards the rolling out of the advance input subsidy scheme which had recently been launched by chief minister Nitish Kumar in Patna, Nalanda, Samastipur and Vaishali districts.

According to the plan, 20,000 identified farmers in the selected districts have been given Rs 6,000 in advance and the money available with selected farmers is in virtual form. The farmers cannot withdraw their money, rather they can transfer it to buy items related to organic farming from listed agencies.

"For now, the scheme has been launched on a pilot basis and based on the experiences gained during its implementation, further fine-tuning may be made before giving its benefits to farmers of other districts which have been selected under the organic corridor scheme. At present, it is difficult to speak about a specific time by which it would be offered to other districts," said the official.