CURATED BY – GAURAV SINGHAL | CITYCHIEFNEWS

Saharanpur, Project Management Group meeting was convened under the chairmanship of Chief Development Officer Sumit Rajesh Mahajan. Agricultural Diversification Project was reviewed by Chief Development Officer. In which Chief Development Officer directed to widely publicize the Agricultural Diversification Project and to convey the information of the scheme to maximum farmers through various mediums. Agricultural Diversification Project in Saharanpur was approved by Project Management Group.

Chief Development Officer emphasized on creating clusters of pulses, maize and vegetables. Agricultural Diversification Project is being operated in 11 districts of six divisions of Western Uttar Pradesh. Chief Development Officer has informed that in Saharanpur district, a total of 892 hectares of paddy area will be replaced by UPDASP, Saharanpur. The main objective of this project is to replace paddy area with crops requiring less water. As the ground water level is falling rapidly, due to which drinking water problem may also arise in future. UPDASP's Agriculture Diversification Project will encourage people to grow crops that require less water by replacing paddy.
The crops selected in the Agriculture Diversification Project in the district are Urad/Moong, Maize, Groundnut, Millet, Soybean and Kharif Vegetables in Kharif. All the development blocks of the district will be included in this scheme. Farmers will be given subsidy for crop diversification. This scheme will be cluster based, in which a cluster of Urad/Moong, Maize, Groundnut, Millet, Soybean will be of 10 hectares, in which a farmer will be able to replace maximum two hectares of paddy under the scheme. Vegetable cluster will also be of 10 hectares. In this, a farmer will be able to take advantage of maximum 0.4 hectares. In this scheme, subsidy will also be given on agricultural equipment. In which the farmers of the cluster will be given priority. For this, interested farmers will have to register on the website of UPDASP www.updasp.co.in. For this, farmer registration number of Agriculture Department, Aadhar card, family ID, photocopy of bank passbook, Khatauni (in which the share of the farmer is clear), Khasra of last year's paddy crop year etc. will be required. Which will have to be uploaded at the time of registration. The scheme will be based on first come, first serve, forming clusters including all bills / U vouchers and documents. Interested farmers can get information about the project by contacting UPDASP website www.updasp.co.in along with the District Project Coordinator located in Company Bagh premises, District Project Coordinator (DPC) in the office of UPDASP - 8439593493, Assistant Manager System 7510002058. Deputy Agriculture Director, District Project Coordinator, UPDASP, District Agriculture Officer, District Horticulture Officer and experts from Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Agricultural University were present in the meeting.