Unique opportunity to foster agri-preneurship in UT, says Atal Dulloo
JAMMU: The Agriculture Production Department in Jammu and Kashmir is all set to launch the Kisan Sampark Abhiyan, a program aimed at overall welfare of farmers across the Union Territory.
In this regard, Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture Production Department, Atal Dulloo, today chaired a meeting to review progress on preparations being put in place for program launch.
The Abhiyan will be launched across 3565 panchayats in Jammu and Kashmir from 24th April 2023 which will last for 4 months. The program aims to involve Panchayati Raj Institutions in the scheme and celebrate ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ as part of the program. To ensure success of the ambitious program, 2400 resource persons have been identified and trained for all districts besides 45 educational videos in multiple languages have been created to educate farmers and pamphlets have been printed in Urdu, Hindi and English.
The Kisan Sampark Abhiyan will include question and answer sessions for the farmers. Furthermore, the farmers will receive education about 18 Centrally Sponsored Schemes that have been designed for their welfare and development.
Additionally, manual passbooks under the Kisan Credit Card scheme will be replaced by smart cards for the farmers. This change is aimed at helping farmers increase their spending in the sector, ultimately leading to an improvement in their productivity and production.
In addition to the Kisan Sampark Abhiyan, the Agriculture Production Department will launch Daksh Kisan, an online skilling platform that will provide farmers with learning opportunities. The platform will include 1700 videos across 118 courses in Urdu, Hindi, Dogri and Kashmiri. The course material with 20000 pages will cover several modules, including business management and entrepreneurship. The completion of the course will provide learners with certificates from SKUAST. The entire program is free of cost, making it an unprecedented initiative for the farming community of Jammu and Kashmir.
The program will also launch an IT Platform, a one-stop dashboard to avail all farmers related services and schemes of the government with facility of online application and approval. The online system will also provide timely sector wise, region wise and crop wise advisories to registered farmers through SMS, irrespective of whether they have undergone any course or not.
ACS, Atal Dulloo, encouraged the officers to educate the farmers about the program and ensure availability and increased participation of farmers and Panchayati Raj Institution members.
The meeting also reviewed the availability of infrastructure and other facilities across all panchayats ensuring that the program benefits the farmers across the region.
The preparatory meeting was attended by DG Planning, Harjeet Singh Arora; Director Agriculture, KK Sharma; Director Horticulture, Ram Savak; Managing Director J&K AIDCL, Dr Arun Manhas; Director Animal Husbandry, Dr Shubhra Sharma; Director Sheep Husbandry, Dr Krishan Lal besides various other officers.
MD&CEO, J&K Bank; District Development Commissioners and officers from Kashmir division participated through video conference.