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The minister for agriculture has directed that 10% allocation under each and every scheme in the agriculture will be set aside as contingency fund to meet the sudden expenditure arising out of the less rainfall in the country.
This direction has been issued to various divisions of the ministry irrespective of whether the division or the scheme handles drought management or contingency planning.
According to officials, this contingency planning for funds has been done so that existing funds could be used without requiring separate sanction from the ministry of finance which could delay the measures.
For the time being, major part of the fund will be used for diesel subsidy, distribution of seeds with less water intake, fertiliser so that basic input costs should not go up for the farmers.
Last week, the ministry had called an urgent meeting of 18 states in the wake of delayed rains next week and prepare state specific contingency plan for crops.
According to official sources, the meeting has been called to discuss the preparedness of the states to handle less rainfall or drought like situations. States were also asked to set aside a portion of funds allocated under the flagship scheme of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) for drought like situation preparedness.
Diesel subsidy and its estimation is also one of the proposals discussed, said official sources. The basic crop related strategy to be discussed include building up reserve of seeds for alternate less water consuming varieties for state specific requirement and its faster distribution across states.
While this meeting discussed state specific issues and their respective preparedness, a detailed contingency plan was prepared by the ministry of agriculture as part of Kharif 2014 as an overall guidance note for all states. It had planned for the states to meet different situations arising out of delayed/deficient rainfall, prolonged spells of drought, excess rainfall etc.
These states have been already asked to be prepared with sufficient seeds of short duration varieties of kharif crops and timely placement of inputs such as seeds and fertilisers.
The meeting also held crop-specific strategies for higher production of kharif rice, pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds. As an overall strategy, the planning for kharif 2014 has to focus on eastern India for cereals, crop diversification in North-Western Region and coverage of higher area under pulses and oilseeds along with adequate administrative and financial back up to farmers.
More area under millets is one of the main agenda for Kharif 2014 and it will be pursued, said officials. The Centre for excellence for millets established in Tamil Nadu has been given the mandate for increasing acreage under irrigated maize and productivity enhancement by use of millets/maize boosters should be promoted and rice area should be diverted in maize in Haryana.
Officials said s per the plan, for enhanced production of millets, detailed plan has been suggested to states.
As per the plan, there is a need to popularise foxtail millets under rainfed conditions and rice fallow ragi where pulses could not be grown in Tamil Nadu; single cross hybrids maize for higher productivity and quality protein maize in Jharkhand.
Towards this, subsidy at the rate of 75% of the total cost of the production will be given to develop hybrid maize in Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
