By Jagdish Jamwal The interest is developing amongst the beneficiaries for Horticulture Technology Mission.
There are telephone calls and enquiries by word of mouth.
To gauge the level of interest we decided to visit the three villages of Jandial, Ranjan and Gura Pattan.
The house of Sh.
Sham Lal Kesar is at the corner where all these three villages meet; we organized a meet at that place.
The forty to fifty prominent people collected from the area were accompanied by Sudarshan Singh, Sarpanch of Sarote village, Anwar Khan Sarpanch of Bagani, Milkhi Ram member Pabchayat of Gorda, Janak Singh from Jandial village who is the Chairman of Block Committee, Charan Dass of Malpura Panchayat, Ravinder Singh a prominent member of Sarote village, Ravi Kumar of Gura Pattan, Girdhari Lal Naib Sarpanch from Rabta village, Bagani Panchayat.
Chief Horticulture Officer, Jammu, Sh.
Jia Lal Sharma explained the importance of Technology Mission and the advantages of taking part in the projects to be sanctioned by the Horticulture Department of the district.
Nurseries He said funds can be sanctioned for Public Sector Nurseries to the tune of eighteen lakhs for the big nurseries, however, if these are small nurseries then only three lakhs will be available.
In the private sector the big nurseries will get fifty per cent of the cost limited to eight lakhs and the smaller ones will get only three lakhs.
Area Expansion The subsidies available for area expansion programmes were explained.
It is fifty per cent of cost limited to rupees thirteen thousand per hectare for fruits, vegetables, spices and traditional plants and thirteen thousand per unit of 0.2 hectares for Floriculture.
Irrigation/Protected Cultivation/IPM/Plant Health Clinics/Agricultural Equipment Subsidies for creating irrigation sources, for micro irrigation, for protected cultivation, for Integrated Pest Management, for plant health clinics, for agriculture equipment were explained to the gathering.
The facilities available for training of the farmers, of the supervisors and of post harvest handling & marketing of the produce was explained to the farmers in detail on the lines given in our Column of 27 November 2003.
To ensure that every body has understood the whole Technology Mission people were asked to clarify the doubts.
The main doubts of the farmers were the modalities of demanding the subsidies from the Department.
The Chief Horticulture Officer said that any body wanting the assistance should put down their requirements on a piece of paper and submit it to the officer of the department in their area or directly to the CHO at his office in City.
The owner of the only Tree of Raj Harad was in the gathering and he requested us to ensure that the State Government plans on propagation of many new plants of Raj Harad.
Development of Centers of Excellence for Horticulture Mission Every district Horticulture Officer will have to develop at least one 'Center of Excellence for Horticulture Mission Programmes' as per the requirements and potential of the district.
It should be a compact area consisting of 40 to 50 hectares of land.
It should be easily approachable and developed in close coordination with ICAR which would provide quality planting material and technology for making it a success.
These Centers should be established through formation of 'Self Help Groups' of beneficiaries.
The most important part would be the selection of the beneficiaries/area.
The selection of the crop with the improved varieties under the guidance of ICAR and procurement of the planting materials of different crops from ICAR would be the next in importance.
Then the Creation of Community Water tanks including community over-head tank for installation of Drip Irrigation System linked to Diesel Engine.
Establishment of small integrated multi-crop nursery by a private party under the overall guidance of ICAR and mother plants for multiplication would be the next item.
The Nursery can have shed nets and poly house area, this can include five (100 sq.mt.) Green Houses.
There should be at least one Vermi Compost Unit, two to three Model Floriculture Centers and two to three Integrated Mushroom Units.
The whole Center of Excellence should be linked with some marketing center.
A prominent sign board should be displayed on the road side indicating the site of the Center of Excellence.
In a year a group of ten farmers from the center should visit Horticulture development centers outside the State.
National Horticulture Board Scheme to send a group of ten farmers outside the State to specialized Horticulture Development Institutions should also be made use of for educating the farmers on the latest developments in horticulture.
Integrated Development of the Six Panchayats Anwar Khan the Sarpanch and other members of Bagani Panchayat were very keen to develop their area into the fruit orchards and wanted to plant many fruit trees.
They said that their area is famous for Desi Mangoes of different Varieties and they wanted mango to be given priority in the area.
Many more mango plants should be planted and arrangements made to provide supplemental irrigation so that these do not suffer because of shortage of water during dry season.
They were keen to adopt the Drip System if that provides the answer to the shortage of water for irrigation for developing Horticulture.
They would be happy to create the Water Harvesting tanks to be used for irrigation during the summer months when the maximum shortage of water is experienced.
They are keen to adopt the tanks recommended by the Horticulture Department for the Technology Mission.
They wanted an Awareness Camp to be held in their Panchayat.
Some people recommended that a unit of six Panchayats be formed so that they can plan for development of Horticulture in these Panchayats.
Committee is formed one each for each Panchayat and one for all the six Panchayats of Chhoa, Ranjan, Jandial, Sarote, Dhanu and Bagani.
They wanted integrated development for Dairies, Compost Making, Poultry, Horticulture, Sericulture, Vegetable Cultivation, Mushroom Cultivation, Bee Keeping and other allied subjects.
It would be easier for them to handle the affairs if they work conjointly as a bigger body of six Panchayats rather than each Panchayat tackle these separately.
