Farmers to get sophisticated tools, machines at subsidised rates

Kumar Rajiv Nayan

Sasaram: Farmers will be given sophisticated tools and equipment at subsidized rates for agriculture work to ensure farming on time and also at minimum cost. District Agriculture Officer (DAO), Rohtas, Dina Nath Singh said under the agriculture department’s ‘Agriculture Mechanism Scheme’ the selected farmers will be given agriculture tools and equipments at subsidized rates.

Only those farmers will be selected who have farm land and added that 16%  Schedule Castes and 1% Schedule Tribes farmers too will be selected under the scheme and they are exempted from the minimum qualification. He said their quota will not be filled up by others at any cost and if farmers of these categories are not found, landless labourers and bataidars will be given the benefit of the scheme. He said that farmers, who had taken benefit of the scheme earlier, will not be selected for the same tool or equipment.  The DAO further said that subsidy is allowed only on tractor or power tiller besides two additional agriculture tools.

The DAO said that a farmer, who wishes to get tractor of 15HP on subsidised rate, should have at least one acre of land while for more than 15HP, he should have about one hectare of land. Farmers seeking power tiller on subsidised rate should have at least one acre of land and for pump set, they should have at least half acre of land. The SC/ST farmers are exempted from this qualification. The DAO said that farmers cultivating lands of others without a written agreement will not be given subsidy on tractor, power tiller or other big agriculture tools and equipment. He said that yield will increase by 12% with mechanized farming besides 20% less seeds and 15.20% less fertilizer will be needed. The income of farmers will be increase by 30%, he added.