State to computerise tehsil agriculture offices

The Minister also announced a string of programmes to help farmers in the State. He said emphasis will be on providing market information to farmers. To make a beginning, marketing service centres will be opened at Nagpur, Aurangabad and Pune and will be run by Maharashtra Agro-Industries Development Corporation (MAIDC), he said.

Deshmukh informed that the Democratic Front Government was considering introduction of a new subsidy scheme to bring about radical changes in the cropping pattern.

Under the programme, subsidy will be available to farmers adopting non-traditional crops while those sticking to the traditional crops will not be entitled to the subsidy facilities, he added.

Speaking about the scenario in Vidarbha region, the Minister said a special programme to promote sugar cane cultivation has been introduced in the region. It is estimated to cost Rs 6 crore.

Another programme to promote use of drip irrigatioon has also been chalked out for the region. Nagpur district will get the maximum share of Rs 8.50 crore out of Rs 25 crore marked for the region.

S M Yeole, Joint Director, Agriculture, made introductory rematks. District Superintending Agriculture Officer N.B. Nagrale, welcomed the guests.

On the occasion, the Minister distributed subsidy amount of Rs 5,000 each to 600 farmers for promotion of cash crops. Prizes were also distributed to the winners of a competition for mango growers. The two top prizes went to a nursery in Hiwra Bazar and individual catagory prize to Anant Gharad.

Earlier, the meet was inaugurated by District Collector Manukumar Srivastava. In the technical session, experts spoke about various issues related to modernisation of agriculture to make it more remunerative.

The speakers included D S Chimurkar of Agriculture Development Project, Dr Malvi, Dr Sharanagat and Dr B N Patil of College of Agriculture.