Haryana To Promote New Farming Technologies Including Drone Usage & Natural Farming

Haryana government will encourage the use of modern farming technologies, such as drones and natural farming, across the state. 

CM Manohar Lal Khattar emphasized the use of modern technology on Wednesday, saying, "Estimation of agricultural crops, digitization of land papers, and usage of Kisan Drones for spraying pesticides and fertilizers will be promoted.

The Haryana government has already established a Drone Authority in the state. The union budget has also prioritized natural farming over chemical farming. Chemical-free natural farming will be encouraged across the country; in the initial phase, special attention will be paid to farmers' lands under 5 km wide corridors adjacent to the river Ganga”. 

Speaking about the significance of the union budget for farmers, Khattar stated, "In the Union Budget presented yesterday, several steps were taken keeping the interests of the farmers in mind.  Wheat procurement in Rabi 2021-22 and projected paddy procurement in Kharif 2021-22 would contain 1208 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and paddy from 163 lakh farmers, with Rs.2.37 lakh crore of MSP price paid directly into farmers' accounts. It is worth noting that in Haryana, payments for crop procurement are already being transferred straight to farmers' accounts." 

In terms of digital and high-tech services for farmers, Khattar stated, "A new scheme will be introduced in PPP mode under which digital and high-tech services would be provided to farmers.  Public sector research and extension institutions, as well as private agricultural technology companies and agricultural value chain stakeholders, will be participating in this. NABARD will give assistance for the creation of a mixed capital fund using the co-investment model. The objective of this fund will be to finance agricultural start-ups and rural enterprises that are suited for the agricultural product value chain. These start-ups' operations would entail, interalia delivering decentralized machinery on a rental basis to farmers at the farm level and IT-based assistance for FPOs." 

“The Ken-Betwa Link project would be implemented at an estimated cost of Rs.44605 crore.  The goal of this scheme is to provide irrigation over 9.08 lakh hectares of agricultural land.

Aside from providing drinking water to 62 lakh people, the project would also generate 103 MW of hydropower and 27 MW of solar power. An allocation of Rs.4300 crore has been made for this project in the Revised Estimates 2021-22 and Rs.1400 crore in 2022-23.” 

"The draft DPRs for the five river linkages as well as Damanganga-Pinjal, Par-Tapi-Narmada, Godavari-Krishna and Krishna-Pennar-Cauvery, have been finalized. The Central Government would provide help for their implementation as soon as there is an agreement on these among the beneficiary states.”