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The Rajasthan government has decided to provide free seed kits of vegetables to around 2 million farmers at a cost of Rs 60 crore in the financial year 2023-24.
This money will be spent from the farmers’ welfare fund under the Rajasthan Horticulture Development Mission.
A senior official of the horticulture department said that with approval from chief minister Ashok Gehlot, 500,000 farmers will be provided single crop kits for a 500 sq m area. In comparison, 150,000 farmers will be provided combo kitchen garden kits for 100 sq m area.
The official said that in the combo kitchen garden kit for kharif crop, the seeds include round gourd, okra, chilli, cluster bean, bottle gourd, tomato and aubergine. Seeds for zaid crops are cucumber, okra, round gourd, bottle gourd and cluster bean. Zaid crops are grown during the summer for a short period between kharif and rabi crops.
According to the plan, the state government aims to distribute 700,000 kits during kharif 2023, 1.1 million kits for rabi 2023-24 and 200,000 kits for zaid 2024.
Other than this, the Gehlot government plans to provide 35,000 quintals of high-quality seeds worth Rs 15 crore for free to more than 125,000 farmers in the state. This would boost the production of seeds.
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Around 589,000 quintals of seeds are likely to be produced. This will extend support to the farmers. The state government has given its go ahead to the proposal related to seed distribution and production.
Under this scheme, seeds of wheat, jau, chana, jwar, soybean, groundnut, moong, moth and urad will be made available to the farmers.
An amount of Rs 15 crore will be spent from the farmers’ welfare fund on this.
