Avoid Chemical fertilizers, boost organic farming

Government is implementing  a Cluster based programme   to encourage the farmer for promoting organic farming called Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY):

v  Groups of farmers would be motivated to take up organic farming under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY). Fifty or more farmers will form a cluster having 50 acre land to take up the organic farming under the scheme.

v  In this way during three years 10,000 clusters will be formed covering 5.0 lakh acre area under organic farming. There will be no liability on the farmers for expenditure on certification.

v  Every farmer will be provided Rs. 20,000 per acre in three years for seed to harvesting of crops and to transport produce to the market.

v  Organic farming will be promoted by using traditional resources and the organic products will be linked with the market.

v  It will increase domestic production and certification of organic produce by involving farmers

v  In order to implement the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana in Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana in the year 2015-16, an amount of Rs.300 crore has been allocated.

State wise Farm area (excluding Forest Area) under Organic Certification during 2013-14

S.No.	State Name	Organic Area (in Ha)
1	Andaman & Nicobar Islands	321.28
2	Andhra Pradesh	12325.03
3	Arunachal Pradesh	71.49
4	Assam	2828.26
5	Bihar	180.60
6	Chhattisgarh	4113.25
7	Delhi	0.83
8	Goa	12853.94
9	Gujarat	46863.89
10	Haryana	3835.78
11	Himachal Pradesh	4686.05
12	Jammu & Kashmir	10035.38
13	Jharkhand	762.30
14	Karnataka	30716.21
15	Kerala	15020.23
16	Lakshadweep	895.91
17	Madhya Pradesh	232887.36
18	Maharashtra	85536.66
19	Manipur	0
20	Meghalaya	373.13
21	Mizoram	0
22	Nagaland	5168.16
23	Odisha	49813.51
24	Pondicherry	2.84
25	Punjab	1534.39
26	Rajasthan	66020.35
27	Sikkim	60843.51
28	Tamil Nadu	3640.07
29	Tripura	203.56
30	Uttar Pradesh	44670.10
31	Uttaranchal	24739.46
32	West Bengal	2095.51
	Total	723039.00

         Source: APEDA (2013-14)

Progress of North East Rural Livelihood Project

North East Rural Livelihood Project, a central sector externally aided multi-state project was launched in March 2012. The main objective of the project is to improve rural livelihoods, especially that of women, unemployed youth and the most disadvantaged in the four participating North East States. The total project cost has been estimated at US$ 144.4 million with World Bank assistance of US$130 million and Government of India’s contribution of US$14.4 million (at 10%). The financial project has been made for five years with the mandate to implement in two districts each of Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim and five districts in Tripura. About 3 lakh households will directly benefit from the project across 11 districts, 62 blocks and 1645 villages. 

The main thrusts of the project are to build community based organizations such as Self Help Groups (SHGs), SHG village Federations, Community Development Groups (CDGs), Producer Organizations etc. and strengthen the existing ones; to nurture and build capacity of the Community-Based Organization Leaders for enabling them to participate in decision making and development process; to provide financial support for promotion of livelihood activities; to facilitate technical support, expert services and knowledge transfer through partnership; to provide vocational trainings and skill trainings for self-business and job placement; to promote a few livelihood clusters; to provide necessary linkages for institutional finance; and to develop value chains on certain potential products. 

The desired outcomes of the project include (a) making the SHGs promoted and supported by the project sustainable, (b) increasing the income level of the members of the SHGs (at least 60% of them) and disadvantaged households by 30% in real term and (c) providing jobs or self employment to the unemployed youths through various skill trainings, entrepreneurship development trainings, vocational trainings and management development trainings. 

Initially, the project had focused on institution building and strengthening of existing community institutions. With minimum coverage of 70% of the households of the project villages, institution building has almost saturated in Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim. Good progress has also been made in two districts of Tripura. By end of March 2015, the project has formed 13,685 SHGs, 142 SHG Village Federations and 1351 CDGs. Having the solid platforms of development laid down, the project is now focusing more on creating resilient livelihoods for the community people. With a view to contributing towards the corpus funds and also to provide livelihood support, the project has so far provided Seed Capital to 11049 SHGs and livelihood Funds to 5780 SHGs amounting Rs.22.09 crore and Rs.28.24 crore respectively. Another Rs.6.52 crore has been released for entry point activities and execution of Community Development Plans. The project has also started 4 model livelihood clusters with approximate investment of upto Rs.100 lakh each on piggery, goatary and dairy. 

NERLP has also put a target of providing skill trainings to about 20,000 unemployed youths from the project districts. For organizing skill trainings on different trades, the project has entered into MOUs with 16 Voluntary Training Providers who are either government/semi government organizations or NSDC empanelled. As on date, 1045 youths have been trained out of which around 519 got placement in various parts of the country mainly in retail, hospitality, IT and health care sector. Another 393 candidates are getting placement very soon and 216 youths are undergoing training. 

Apart from physical achievement, the financial achievement of the project for 2014-15 has been impressive. As against the budget allocation of Rs.90.00 (RE), the project has made a total expenditure of Rs.72.13 crore. This under-expenditure has been mainly due to delayed releases of the RE budget of Rs.60 crore sometime in the first week of March 2015.