Agricultural Schemes

The Himachal Pradesh government will consider giving tax concessions to milk producers and launch innovative schemes to increase the farmers' income in the upcoming budget, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said on Sunday. The budget session of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly will be held from February 14 to 29. The state budget will be presented on February 17. Interacting with the milk producers of the state here, he said the government was encouraging agriculture as an industry to make the farmers self-reliant. "As agriculture and milk production plays a pivotal role in promoting the rural economy, the state government is coming up with innovative schemes to increase the income of farmers in the upcoming budget, results of which would be visible in next two years", he said in a statement issued here. Fundamental changes were being made in the policies and rules to ensure that money goes directly to the farmers, he noted. The government will also consider giving tax concessio

An agriculture department official said that, according to the proposal, around Rs 21 crore will be given as subsidy to the farmers to use improved technology

They are mostly loss-making, with growing bad assets so the agricultural sector prefers commercial banks

Chhattisgarh is the only state that has been procuring paddy from farmers at Rs 2,500 per quintal, which is higher than what the Centre has set

Tomar also urged scientists to provide their research inputs to reap more benefits from traditional methods of farming

The Aayog further suggested examining options for including private traders operating in markets to complement the MSP regime through a system of incentives and commission payments

The programme, which was launched last year after clubbing 11 schemes for the sector, has now been approved for continuation beyond the 12th Five Year Plan ended last March

Farm incomes will not double by productivity increases alone