Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Farmers in Uttar Pradesh will now get an enhanced subsidy when they buy paddy and wheat seeds from the government. Two days back, on August 16, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet sanctioned the increased subsidy in the Beej Gram Yojana.
This yojana is meant to help farmers, among other things, with good quality seeds and provide training to them with up to date agricultural methods and techniques.
So far, the subsidies in this scheme of the state government were lower than those offered in other seed schemes of the central government. But with the recent announcement by the chief minister, the subsidy in Uttar Pradesh has come to par with other central government schemes.
Farmers now will get an additional subsidy of Rs 250 per quintal on paddy seeds and Rs 400 per quintal on wheat seeds, given by the Uttar Pradesh government. The recommendation of the cabinet to increase the subsidy has been sanctioned and it will be implemented from the financial year 2021-22 to the financial year 2022-23.
Till now, under the Beej Gram Yojana, Rs 1,750 a quintal was the subsidy on paddy seeds and Rs 1,600 a quintal on wheat seeds. This was low when compared to other schemes where the farmers received as much as up to Rs 2,000 per quintal for both paddy and wheat. But not any more as the Beej Gram Yojana will also give either 50 per cent of the cost of seed as subsidy, or Rs 2,000 per quintal subsidy to the farmer, whichever is lower.
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“In order to enhance the profit margin of the farmers, the state government has upped the subsidy using money from the state budget. This is also to encourage farmers to use the certified seeds that are beneficial to the crop,” SB Singh, additional director, department of agriculture, Uttar Pradesh, told Gaon Connection. Singh explained.
Beej Gram Yojana
Talking about the Beej Gram Yojana, Singh said that it is a government scheme where the farmer gets subsidised seeds for an acre of land. The government’s intention, through the Beej Gram Yojana, is to reach quality seeds to the farmer, propagate them and distribute better seeds to the tillers. The Yojana also provides up-to-date training to the farmers in cultivation techniques, etc.
“Nearly eight lakh (800,000) quintals of certified seeds are distributed in Uttar Pradesh every year on subsidy. But there is a need for more than that amount, and the farmer obtains nearly ten to twenty per cent of the requirement of seeds from private players, or other sources,” said the additional director.
Explaining how this scheme functions, Sanjeev Kumar, district agriculture officer, Barabanki, told Gaon Connection: “In order to reach the yojana to the farmers, several gram panchayats get together to make up a nyay panchayat.” Technical assistance is made available to selected farmers from the nyay panchayat and they are given training every year, the agriculture officer explained.
“The selected farmers are provided with quality certified seeds and are helped with know-how right from the time of sowing to the harvest. They are also taught how best to use fertilisers,” Sanjeev Kumar said.
According to the agriculture department in the state, on an average every year, nearly six million hectare of land is used for paddy (kharif) cultivation and nearly 9.9 million hectare of land is under wheat (rabi) cultivation.
The state government hopes that the increase in subsidies will attract more farmers to subscribe to the Beej Gram Yojana, which will not just benefit them but also increase the allocation of money from the central government.
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