Tamil Nadu to Introduce Nutritive Vegetable Garden Scheme to boost Cultivation

The government of Tamil Nadu will implement the Chief Minister's Nutritive Vegetable Garden Scheme to enable women to grow fresh, residue-free vegetables at home to meet their daily needs and for children to learn about plants.

The Minister of Agriculture MRK Panneerselvam stated in the Assembly on Saturday that it will be implemented at a cost of 95 crore rupees with state government funds and contribution of the Union government 2 lakh seed packs including 12 vegetable seeds will be distributed in rural areas at a subsidy rate.

One lakh terrace gardening kits, including six vegetable seeds, will be distributed in urban areas at subsidized prices. Therefore, the vegetable planting area is expected to increase. “The required 50-crore vegetable seedlings and 400 metric tonnes of vegetable seeds will be produced in State horticulture farms and distributed,” he said.

By improving soil fertility, vegetables are grown on 1,250 hectares of land in 2,000 villages where vegetable cultivation is poor. Pandal structure is also going to be promoted in an area of 638 hectares for the successful cultivation of gourds greens in an area of 1000 hectares in all districts.

Arunachal Pradesh is also one of the states which introduced the nutritional kitchen garden schemes to reduce their dependence on other states for vegetables and livestock.

Last year the Cabinet approved the development of 2,000 kitchen gardens for each Assembly constituency under fourteen Finance Commission grants for self sufficiency and nutritional requirements.

About Pandal structure farming:

Vegetable cultivation on pandal is a technique to improve vegetable crops such as gourd, bitter gourd, gourd, loofah, and coccidia. In the past, planting was limited to grape planting. Today, it is used to grow high-value pumpkins in semi-urban areas.