Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], December 28 : With an aim to make the agricultural sector more prosperous and increase the income of farmers of the state, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann led Punjab government has introduced initatives including highest rate of sugarcane, subsidy on hybrid maize seeds, financial assistance for Direct Seeding of Rice (DSR), free-electricity to farmers for agri-pumps, besides, encouraging farmers to adopt crop diversification, an official release said.
Highlighting the achievements of the Agriculture Department, Punjab Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian informed that the state has maintained the lead across the country in paying the highest price of Rs 401 per quintal for Sugarcane.
Punjab Government has recently hiked Rs 10 in the state-agreed price (SAP) of sugarcane, increasing the rate to Rs 401 per quintal for the 2024-25 crushing season. Payment of cooperative sugar mills has been cleared by Punjab Govt for the crushing year 2023-24. These steps lead to an increases in the area of sugarcane by 5000 hectares during 2024-25.
He further informed that the Punjab Government has been providing financial assistance of Rs 1500 per acre to the farmers, who have adopted the Direct Seeding of Rice (DSR) technique to arrest the depleting ground-water. This initiative of the government has received a good response from the farmers. During Kharif season-2024, a total of 2.53 lakh acres area cultivated under DSR as compared to 1.70 lakh acres during kharif season-2023 which is 48.8% more than the last year. The Agriculture department had provided Rs. 20.05 crore financial assistance to 17,112 farmers during 2023.
The Agriculture Minister said that the Punjab Government has continued free electricity facility to the farmers for their tubewells and Rs.9331 crore allocated for this purpose during 2024-25.
Khudian further said that the state government's crop diversification campaign got a major push as Punjab witnessed at least a 14 percent increase in area under Basmati cultivation. During this Kharif Season, Basmati has been sown in 6.80 lakh hectares, which was 5.96 lakh hectares in the year 2023.
Punjab Government has also banned 10 agriculture pesticides used on Basmati to enable farmers to produce international standard Basmati. A Basmati Extension-Research Centre and a residue testing laboratory is being established in coordination with Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), which will give a boost to Punjab's basmati exports.
As per the release, Punjab has also managed to increase the area under maize from 0.94 lakh hectares in last year to 0.98 lakh hectares during the Kharif season-2024. The state has provided subsidy on hybrid varieties of maize seeds certified and recommended by PAU, Ludhiana at Rs 100 per kg and Rs 2.30 crore was reserved for the purpose. Apart from this, maize exhibitions were also set up in an area of 3500 hectares in the state, for which maize seeds and other inputs like fertilisers, pesticides etc. were given as assistance to the farmers at the rate of Rs.6000 per hectare, he added.
The Agriculture Minister further added that the state government has provided 80 percent subsidy to farmer groups and 50 per cent subsidy to individual farmers for Crop Residue Management (CRM) machines.
During Financial Year 2024-25 a total of 16,000 machines have been provided for stubble management. As a result, the number of paddy stubble fire incidents has reduced from 36,663 fire incidents during 2023 to 10,909 during 2024 at a tune of 70%, the release said.