With agrarian distress being seen in many states, the Centre is seeking to integrate National Rural Employment Guaranatee Scheme (NREGS) with agriculture in institutional ways to create durable asset,
With agrarian distress being seen in many states, the Centre is seeking to integrate National Rural Employment Guaranatee Scheme (NREGS) with agriculture in institutional ways to create durable asset, besides boosting the rural income.
The ministry of agriculture is seeking integration of NREGS with Kisan Vikas Kandras (KVKs), which work as linkage with the farmers and the government agencies.
Also, the government is making arrangements to rope in entrepreneurs for soil health management programme for which the ministry is exploring ways to find a linkage with the NREGS.
Incidentally, the country has seen two back to back years of adverse situations for agriculture, first with unseasonal rains and hailstorm and later poor Monsoon, which left a number of states under the spell of drought.
Even the ongoing Rabi sowing season has seen somewhat warm winter, which is seen not conducive for the wheat crop. “Farmers are also facing higher agricultural wages, which has further made their situations tough due to higher input costs. Therefore, the need of the hour is to utilise the National Rural Employment Guaranatee Scheme in agriculture in more focused manner, including in the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Sinchai Yojna, which seeks to bring irrigation facilities to unirrigated farm lands,” said a senior official of the ministry of agriculture.
The ministry of agriculture in collaboration with the Sikkim government is hosting a national conference on sustainable agriculture in Gangtok this month in which the representatives of the state governments and experts would be asked to give actionable suggestions on how best to integrate the National Rural Employment Guaranatee Scheme with farming.
