24 lakh marginal farmers to get agri aid this month
Move to boost output in 8 northern districts
Around 24 lakh small and marginal farmers in eight northern districts are going to get government's assistance for agriculture materials as authorities have taken the initiative under Krishi upakaran sahayata programme to boost agriculture production.
Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) offices in the eight districts have already prepared lists of beneficiaries and now preparations are on to make the 'beneficiary cards' for distribution among farmers within January.
Along with other facilities throughout the year, the cardholders will also get government's subsidy against diesel used for running pumps to irrigate paddy fields in the ongoing boro season.
Of the 24,03,725 beneficiaries, 3,91,835 farmers are in Rangpur, 2,67,093 are in Nilphamari, 2,11,842 in Lalmonirhat, 3,18,133 in Kurigram, 4,06,958 in Gaibandha, 4,71,581 in Dinajpur, 2,00,180 in Thakurgaon and 1,36,103 farmers are in Panchagarh district, said Shakhawat Hossain, additional director (AD) of the regional office of DAE in Rangpur.
Farmers name, address, area of their agricultural lands and other information will be written on the beneficiary cards, DAE sources said.
Besides mentioning the amount of government's subsidy for different crops and amount of sanctioned agricultural loans, the cards will also provide information on quality of fertiliser, seeds and pesticides and about government's rehabilitation programmes taken after flood and other natural calamities.
The process will help the government to prepare database regarding the actual number of farmers, area of agricultural lands, crops diversity, production and other important information, sources said.
Regional office of DAE sources said that it has set a target to cultivate boro paddy in 8,64,723 hectares of land to produce 31.30 lakh tonnes of rice in this dry season.
To irrigate their lands the farmers were supposed to use 3,70,761 irrigational pumps of different categories -- 149 of them are diesel-run deep tube wells, 2,85,704 are diesel-run shallow tube wells, 843 electricity-run deep power pumps, 56,382 electricity-run shallow pumps and 27,683 manually run shallow pumps.
As per government decision, small and marginal farmers will be provided subsidy against their use of diesel for irrigational pumps in this boro season, DAE sources said.
Tk 5.00 would be given against a litre of diesel used and farmers would get the subsidy for highest three bigha (1 bigha=30 decimal) of land.
According to government assessment, 35 litres of diesel is needed to provide irrigation in a bigha of land. Accordingly, a farmer will get Tk 525 as diesel subsidy for irrigating three bigha boro lands using 105 litres of diesel.
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