Despite incentives, farmers not ready to adopt DSR

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 17

Even as the state government has announced a financial aid of Rs 1,500 per acre to incentivise the sowing of paddy with the direct seeding of rice (DSR) technique for the second consecutive year, farmers are not much interested as they complain that those who had used the technique were not paid any aid last year.

Further, the DSR technique was only used on nearly 2,100 hectares of land out of the total 1.80 lakh hectares on which paddy varieties, including basmati, were cultivated.

Sahib Singh, a farmer from Malawali village, said, “Last year when we approached officials of the Agriculture Department after using the DSR technique, we were told that the farmers of 27 villages falling in the municipal corporation limits were not eligible for financial aid.”

The department officials too admitted that as it was the first year of the scheme, some people had faced problems. They stated that this year the government had come up with a new procedure as per which the farmers would have to upload their information on the portal made by the department specifically for the purpose.

They said after a farmer applied for the financial aid, the government employees from the area concerned would verify their credentials after inspecting the fields. As a final step, money would be directly disbursed into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.

The officials said with a view to promoting the cultivation of export quality basmati, the department had also appointed kisan mitras in 730 villages who would be paid an honorarium of Rs 5,000 for the services during the season. The District Agriculture Department was also planning to increase the area under basmati from 1.08 lakh hectares last year to 1.30 lakh hectares.

These kisan mitras would help the farmers in growing a high-quality basmati by monitoring the usage of pesticides and chemicals.

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