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Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, November 20
The Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department today organised two awareness camps on wheat cultivation in Gol village of the Adampur block and Dhada Sanaura village in the Bhogpur block of the district.
Over 150 farmers attended the camps in which the department sensitised them to sow wheat using the zero-tillage drill technique with the help of the super seeder machine. The working of the machine was also exhibited during the camps. This machine can sow 10-12 acres of wheat in a day.
Chief Agriculture Officer Nazar Singh said the rent for the machine being charged by the custom hiring centre was Rs 2,000 per acre and in conventional methods of wheat sowing, the cost usually incurs Rs 6,000 per acre and farmers could save Rs 4,000 per acre directly by using the machine.
He said the cost of the machine was around Rs 2.15 lakh and 50 per cent subsidy was being offered to individual farmers and 80 per cent to farmers’ groups.
Meanwhile, he said the state government had decided to give Rs 2,500 per acre as compensation to small and marginal farmers having less than five-acre land and those who have refrained from burning paddy stubble.
He said every application for availing the benefits would be verified by village panchayats and then by the revenue authorities to ensure that only non-basmati cultivating families, who have not burnt any part of the field, get the compensation. Dr Nazar also asked the farmers to avail the benefit of wheat seed subsidy and said Rs 1,000 per quintal subsidy on wheat seed was being offered under the National Food Security Mission.
Engineers Navdeep Singh, Bhagwant Singh Kalsi, Dr Kuljt Singh Saini, Dr Naresh Kumar Gulati were among others who addressed the farmers.