Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Agriculture Production Department, Atal Dulloo today took stock of preparedness of the department for the upcoming Rabi crop season in the Jammu Division.

The meeting was attended by Director Agriculture Jammu, Scientists from SKUAS, Jammu besides other officers of the department.

The ACS underscored the need of providing truthful and certified seeds to the farmers for better yields. He impressed upon both the Directors to properly assess the requirements if High Yielding Varieties of seeds required by them so that there is no shortage of it at the sowing time. He stressed on them to take the seed replacement rate to atleast10% this year. He impressed upon the officers to procure the seeds well on time so that the same reaches to growers before the sowing season.

During the meeting Dulloo instructed the officers to formulate a strategy in association with experts from the Agricultural Universities for increasing the area under crop cultivation. He enquired about different reasons for keeping this land from bringing under cultivation and asked the department to make plan accordingly to address these issues. He told them to provide him the district wise details of fallow land to be taken up for cultivation under different crops.

The ACS urged them to work in close coordination with the banks for disbursement of loans under KCC scheme. He asked them to make concerted efforts to activate all the Kisan Credit Cards and help them in securing the loans for small time farmers. He directed the District Agriculture Officers to have regular coordination meetings with the banks for smooth performance under the KCC scheme.

The meeting was informed that an area of 357000.57 hectares of land has to be covered under different crops in Jammu Division against an area of 331.90 in the previous year. The meeting was further appraised that 58102 quintals of seeds would be made available by the department for the purpose.

It was also given out that 50000 qtl of HYV & Hybrid Seeds shall be provided on subsidy to the farmers. Moreover 20000 ha area expansion under oil seed shall be targeted.

The meeting also discussed promotion of farm mechanization to achieve farm power goal from 1.75 kW/ha to 2.5 kW/h. Also 100 Super seeder/Straw Reapers shall be distributed to the farmers to check the crop residue burning, as was said in the meeting.

For the awareness of farmers through trainings and exposure visits within UT and outside J&K UT about 70000 farmers would be covered. Kissan Melas shall be organized in every district to demonstrate agriculture activities and aware the farmers, the meeting was informed.

It was further revealed that 4500 MTs of Paddy is targeted to be procured during KMS 2022 through 23 seasonal online mandies and also16500 Qtl of wheat seed shall be procured from registered seed growers, as was summed up during the meeting.