Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development: Government Schemes | Indian Economy for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 To provide insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the event of natural calamities, pests & diseases.

 To stabilise the income of farmers to ensure their continuance in farming.

 To encourage farmers to adopt innovative and modern agricultural practices.

 To ensure flow of credit to the agriculture sector.

 All farmers growing notified crops in a notified area during the season who have insurable interest in the crop are eligible.

 Landless labourers with more jobs

 Rural economy

 One crop one rate

 A uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all Rabi crops.

 In case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium to be paid by farmers will be only 5%.

 There is no upper limit on Government subsidy so farmers will get claim against full sum insured without any reduction.

 The premium rates to be paid by farmers are very low and balance premium will be paid by the Government

 Yield Losses: due to non-preventable risks, such as Natural Fire and Lightning, Storm, Hailstorm, Cyclone, Typhoon, Tempest, Hurricane, Tornado. Risks due to Flood, Inundation and Landslide, Drought, Dry spells, Pests/ Diseases also will be covered.

 Post harvest losses are also covered.

 The use of technology: Smart phones will be used to capture and upload data of crop cutting to reduce the delays in claim payment to farmers. Remote sensing will be used to reduce the number of crop cutting experiments.

 The Scheme shall be implemented on an ‘Area Approach basis’

 Defined Area (i.e., unit area of insurance) is Village or above it can be a Geo-Fenced/Geo-mapped region having homogenous Risk Profile for the notified crop

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 To achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level,

 Expand cultivable area under assured irrigation (har khet ko pani).

 28.5 lakh hectares is target for year 2016-17.

 Improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce wastage of water,

 Enhance the adoption of precision-irrigation and other water saving technologies (More crop per drop),

 Enhance recharge of aquifers and introduce sustainable water conservation practices

 Small and middle farmers who cannot afford pump-set irrigation

 Ecological sustainability i.e., ecology as a whole

 Farmers of Drought prone areas

 An outlay of Rs. 50,000 crore over a period of five years (2015-16 to 2019-20) to bring 140 lakh hectares of additional area under irrigation.

 Decentralized State level planning and execution' structure, in order to allow States to draw up a District Irrigation Plan (DIP) and a State Irrigation Plan (SIP)

 Administration: Inter-Ministerial National Steering Committee (NSC) under PM with Union Ministers of all concerned Ministries. A National Executive Committee (NEC) is to be constituted under the Chairmanship of the Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog to oversee programme implementation.

 PMKSY has been formulated amalgamating ongoing schemes viz. Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) of Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation; Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) of Department of Land Resources; and On Farm Water Management (OFWM) component of National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) of Department of Agriculture and Cooperation.

 Water budgeting: is done for all sectors namely, household, agriculture and industries.

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 To further strengthen and provide technical assistance to the Watershed Component of PMKSY

 Access to irrigation to every farm (Har Khet Ko Pani) and

 efficient use of water (Per Drop More Crop)

 Small and middle farmers who cannot afford pump-set irrigation

 Ecological sustainability

 Farmers of Drought prone areas

 World Bank assisted National Watershed Management Project.

 Bring about institutional changes in watershed and rainfed agricultural management practices in India

 Build systems that ensure watershed programmes and rainfed irrigation management practices are better focussed, and more coordinated, and have quantifiable results

 Devise strategies for the sustainability of improved watershed. Management practices in programme areas, even after the withdrawal of project support

 Through the watershed plus approach, support improved equity, livelihoods, and incomes through forward linkages, on a platform of inclusiveness and local participation.

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 To support and promote organic farming and thereby improving soil health.

 Reduce farmer’s dependence on fertilizers and agricultural chemicals to improve yields

 motivate the farmers for natural resource mobilization for input production.

 government plans to form around 10 thousand clusters in three years and cover an area of 5 Lakh hectares under organic farming

 Farmers doing organic farming

 Farmers from NE india such as Sikkim

 Food processing industries

 Organic foods – export industry

 “Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana” is an elaborated component of Soil Health Management (SHM) of major project National Mission of Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA).

 Cluster Approach: cluster approach. Fifty or more farmers form a cluster having 50 acre land to take organic farming. Each farmer will be provided Rs. 20000 per acre in three years for seed to harvesting crops and to transport them to market.

 Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) and Quality control

 Training and Online Registration of farmer

 Soil sample collection and testing

 Process documentation of conversion into organic methods, inputs used, cropping pattern followed, organic manures and fertilizer used etc., for PGS certification

 Inspection of fields of cluster member

 Adoption of organic village for manure management and biological nitrogen harvesting

 Integrated Manure Management

 Packing, Labeling and Branding of organic products of cluster

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 To promote genuine price discovery

 Increases farmers’ options for sale and access to markets

 Part of the various schemes initiated to double farmers income in next five years.

 585 regulated wholesale markets in states/union territories (UTs).

 Farmers

 Local traders

 Bulk buyers, processors

 Farm produce exporters

 Overall economy of the nation

 NAM is a pan-india electronic trading portal which seeks to network the existing apmcs and other market yards to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities. Nam is a “virtual” market but it has a physical market (mandi) at the back end.

 Small farmers agribusiness consortium (sfac) has been selected as the lead agency to implement the national e-platform.

 Central government will provide the software free of cost to the states and in addition, a grant of up to rs. 30 lakhs per mandi or market or private mandis will be given for related equipment and infrastructure requirements

 21 mandis from 8 states have been linked to national agriculture market, 200 mandis will be linked within five months and 585 mandis by march, 2018.

 For the local trader in the mandi / market, nam offers the opportunity to access a larger national market for secondary trading.

 Bulk buyers, processors, exporters etc. Benefit from being able to participate directly in trading at the local mandi / market level through the nam platform, thereby reducing their intermediation costs.

 The gradual integration of all the major mandis in the states into NAM will ensure common procedures for issue of licences, levy of fee and movement of produce.

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 To be a frontline extension in agriculture, and to serve as a single window mechanism for addressing the technology needs of farmers

 To Demonstrate of location specific technologies.

 To serve as links between research and extension and also with farmers.

 Rural youth, Farm women and Farmers (skill development training)

 Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has created a network of 642 Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in the country

 Directorate of Extension in State Agriculture Universities also helps KVKs in its activities.

 KVKs lay strong emphasis on skill development training of rural youth, farm women and farmers

 KVKs provide latest technological inputs like seeds, planting materials and bio-products.

 KVKs advise farmers on timely crop/enterprise related recommendations, including climate resilient technologies u

 KVKs diagnose and solve problems emerging from district agro-ecosystems and are perfectly located to lead adoption of innovations.

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 Scientists to “select villages as per their convenience and remain in touch with the selected villages and provide information to the farmers on technical and other related aspects in a time frame through personal visits or on telephone.

 Scientists with ground level experience

 Farmers with ‘lab to land’ extension services.

 This scheme involves 6,000 scientists functioning at the various centres and institutes of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and over 15,000 scientists working with state agricultural universities.

 Groups of four multidisciplinary scientists each will be constituted at these institutes and universities. Each group will “adopt” five villages within a radius of maximum 100 km.

 Scientists may perform the functions with the help of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) and Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA):

Objective 

Intended beneficiary 

Salient features 

 To Conserve and Develop, and enhance the productivity of Indigenous Breeds

 To undertake breed improvement programme for indigenous cattle breeds so as to improve the genetic makeup and increase the stock;

 Enhance milk production and productivity;

 Upgrade nondescript cattle using elite indigenous breeds like Gir, Sahiwal, Rathi, Deoni, Tharparkar, Red Sindhi

 Indian livestock with upgraded genetics

 Farmers with additional income

 Rashtriya Gokul Mission is a focussed project under National Programme for Bovine Breeding and Dairy Development

 Establishment of Integrated Indigenous Cattle Centres or Gokul Grams in the native breeding tracts of indigenous breeds.

 Enhance the productivity of the indigenous breeds of India through professional farm management and superior nutrition

 Distribution of disease free high genetic merit bulls for natural service.